President Joe Biden reportedly shocked senior advisors by candidly admitting that he might not have chosen to run for reelection if Donald Trump had not sought to reattain the office, CNN reports. Noting that Democrats “cannot let him win,” Biden told a group of donors outside Boston on Tuesday, “If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running.”
One senior advisor who was not at the dinner responded with “Yikes,” when told of the statement. Others, however, pointed to Biden’s statements when he entered the 2020 race, citing the divisiveness of Donald Trump as one of the primary motivators.
“President Biden said in 2020 he was running to restore the soul of our nation – he got into the race after Trump said what he did after Charlottesville – and he correctly views the former president as a unique threat to our democracy,” Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a national co-chair of Biden’s 2024 campaign, told CNN. “President Biden beat Trump before and he will do it again.”