Biden Announces 2024 Reelection Campaign

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden formally announced his bid for a second four-year term on Tuesday, kicking off what is likely the last campaign of his political career with a video in which he urges voters to let him “finish this job.”

The announcement came four years to the day after Biden announced he was running for president in a bid to prevent former President Donald Trump from being elected to a second term.

Biden’s three-minute, four-second video announcing his 2024 intentions builds on that premise, opening with images of the Jan. 6, 2021, siege on the U.S. Capitol by insurrectionist Trump supporters, before segueing into a scene from a peaceful protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court, following its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are,” Biden says as images of the White House, his and Vice President Kamala Harris’ personal appearances and interactions with citizens scroll by. 

“The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer,” he says.

“I know what I want the answer to be. This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for reelection,” the president continues. “I know America and I know we are good and decent people. I know we are still a country that believes in honesty and respect, and treating each other with dignity. We’re a nation where we give hate no safe harbor. We believe that everyone is equal, and that everyone should be given a fair shot to succeed in this country.”

Biden also goes on the offense in the video, noting that, “Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans,” before warning that so-called “MAGA extremists are lining up to take those bedrock freedoms away.” 

And they’re doing this, he said, by “[c]utting Social Security that you’ve paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy. Dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books and telling people who they can love. All while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote.”

Trump, currently the front-runner to be the Republican nominee in 2024, sought to pre-empt Biden’s announcement by releasing a lengthy email response to it Monday night, nearly 12 hours before the president threw his hat into the ring.

Calling Biden a “calamitous and failed” president, Trump opines that “it is almost inconceivable that Biden would even think of running for reelection.”

Trump then goes on to repeat his long ago discredited claims that Democrats “cheated” in 2020 and “rigged” that election against him.

“But I promise you this: when I stand on that debate stage and compare our records, it will be radical Democrats’ worst nightmare,” Trump declared the night before jury selection was to begin in New York in the battery and defamation case filed against him by a longtime columnist for Elle magazine. 

That columnist, E. Jean Carroll, has accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in New York City’s Bergdorf Goodman department store several years ago, then insulting her when denying the allegations last year. 

Trump has denied the incident ever happened. He also made no mention of his other legal woes in his statement, including his recent indictment in New York state Supreme Court on 34 counts of falsifying business records. 

Instead, he opted for grandiosity and bluster: “There has never been a greater contrast between two successive administrations in all of American history. Ours being greatness, and theirs being failure,” Trump said.

In addition to revealing his 2024 intentions, Biden also announced the make-up of his initiation campaign leadership team on Tuesday.

It includes Reps. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, Sens. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Chris Coons, D-Del., and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Also joining the leadership team as a co-chair is Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, the only non-elected official on the team.

Biden also announced that Julie Chávez Rodríguez, a veteran of the Obama administration and staffer on Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, will serve as his campaign manager.

Rodríguez is the granddaughter of Cesar Chávez, the prominent labor leader for farmworkers.

Quentin Fulks a Democratic strategist who served as campaign manager for Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia in his successful reelection bid last year, was named principal deputy campaign manager.

“Julie and Quentin are trusted, effective leaders that know the stakes of this election and will bring their knowledge and energy to managing a campaign that reaches all Americans,” Biden said in a statement.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue