During an interview with NBC’s “Today” show before the White House Easter Egg Roll, President Biden gave a status on his next presidential run.
The 80-year-old President said earlier this Monday while speaking with Al Roker, “I plan on running … but we’re not prepared to announce it yet.” He went on to say that he intends to be the Democratic candidate in 2024 but has not made a formal announcement.
“I plan on at least three or four more Easter egg rolls,” Biden said as the two chatted on the Truman Balcony. “Maybe five. Maybe six, what the hell.” Both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have previously said they will run together.
One source familiar with the matter also told ABC News, “The decision part is over, but he resents the pressure to have to announce what he’s already decided.”
Biden, who at 78 became the oldest person to win the presidency in 2020, had not made any of his plans for a reelection campaign known nor did his office make an official announcement yet either.
However, he has talked about this a couple of times. In a private conversation at the White House last year, Biden reportedly told the Rev. Al Sharpton that he will seek a second term, the civil rights leader told his National Action Network staff in Washington, NBC News reported.
“I’m going to do it again,” Biden said last year as he snapped a pick in the Roosevelt Room with Sharpton, according to an official from the National Action Network who recounted the MSNBC host’s description. “I’m going.”
Biden is the oldest U.S. president in history. If he wins re-election, he would be 86 at by the end of his second term.
Last year, former president Donald Trump also announced that he will run again and seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump told a crowd last year at Mar-a-Lago, his waterfront estate in Florida, where his campaign will be headquartered.
“This will not be my campaign, this will be our campaign all together,” Trump said at the time.
However, it’s too early to tell if he’ll be successful as a recent poll showed he lost support among Republicans after being arraigned last week on charges related to a hush money payment to a porn actress.
Trump, who was accused of multiple crimes also pleaded not guilty last Tuesday to 34 counts of falsifying business records, in the first-ever criminal arraignment of a former U.S. president.
“The only crime I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it,” the former president told his supporters at an event at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida hours after pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts at a Manhattan courthouse.
“They can’t beat us at the ballot box so they try to beat us through the law,” Trump said.