The 2024 election is still a ways away, and right now there are two big uncertainties: Will Donald Trump, the twice-impeached, one-term former president, run again? And will current president Joe Biden, who turned 79 only last month, be game for round two? Trump, of course, keeps teasing another run but hasn’t officially committed. (Possibly because he could be in a lot of legal and financial trouble.) Biden, meanwhile, has reportedly been telling people he’s up for it, despite talk that he step aside for the next generation of Democrats.
But in a new interview with ABC News’ David Muir, Biden seemed a lot more confident about what he’ll be up to in a couple more years. Muir asked him, point blank, if he was up for 2024.
“Yes,” he said outright, then reined his answer in a smidgeon. “I’m a great respecter of fate. Fate has intervened in my life many, many times. If I’m in the health I’m in now, in good health, then in fact I would run again.”
Muir reminded Biden that he may once again square off against an opponent who, among other things, threatened to skip the debates entirely and spent one of them actively preying upon his stutter, successfully getting him to snap. But Biden seemed the opposite of scared.
“You’re trying to tempt me now,” Biden replied. “Why wouldn’t I run against Donald Trump as the nominee? That would increase the prospect of running.”
During the rest of the interview, as per Deadline, Biden was a bit more modest, admitting failure and promising to do better, especially with the pandemic. On Tuesday, he vowed to send 500 million rapid tests out to American citizens in early January, but he admitted that he “wish[ed] he had thought about ordering sooner.” He also said “nothing’s been good enough,” though he pointed out that things are dramatically different from this time last year, when vaccines were still barely available to the general public and many families spent the holidays apart.
Or, you know, maybe Biden will go up against Ted Cruz.