President Joe Biden said the time is not yet ripe for him to publicly commit to mounting a bid for a second term in the White House because doing so would require him to comply with restrictions only applied to candidates actively seeking office.
Mr Biden declined to say whether he would be a candidate in the 2024 presidential election despite being pressed on the matter by CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley during a wide-ranging interview for the network’s 60 Minutes programme.
Asked if he would commit to running, he replied that “in terms of election laws” it is “much too early to make that kind of decision”.
“I'm a great respecter of fate. And so, what I'm doing is I'm doing my job. I'm gonna do that job. And within the timeframe that makes sense after this next election cycle here, going into next year, make a judgment on what to do,” he said.
Declaring oneself to be a candidate for an election too early can cause financial problems for a campaign that is forced to adhere to federal campaign finance laws once a candidacy is declared. Mr Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, filed paperwork for his reelection bid the day after he took office in 2017. But by the time the 2020 general election took place, his campaign was nearly out of money.
When asked whether he has decided for himself whether he will run, the president again demurred, telling Pelley that his “intention” is to run again.
“But it's just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen,” he said.
After Pelley noted that Mr Biden is the oldest person to ever serve as the US chief executive and asked what Mr Biden thinks of critics who question his fitness for the role, the president replied: “Watch me”.
Continuing, he told Pelley that his age hasn’t come up as an issue during his work to bring Nato together in support of Ukraine.
“When I sit down with our NATO allies and keep 'em together, I don't have 'em saying, ‘Wait a minute, w-- how-- how old are you? ‘” Mr Biden said. He added that he would respect the fact that people would call him old, but countered that he thinks his fitness for the job “relates to” his energy level and whether how he is performing is consistent with what “any person of any age would be able to do”.
