Washington | US President Joe Biden on Thursday said he is “determined” and “fit” to seek his re-election against his Republican rival Donald Trump and a “stupid mistake” by him will not change his course as he has work to finish.
Responding to questions during a press conference at the conclusion of the NATO Summit, Biden said that no poll or person is telling him that he can't win reelection currently. That is the only way he would consider ending his presidential bid.
“I'm determined on running,” he said.
“The fact is that the consideration is that I think I'm the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him (Trump) once and I will beat him again. Secondly.. The idea that senators and congressmen are running for office worrying about the ticket is not unusual and I might add, there were at least five presidents running or incumbent presidents who had lower numbers than I have now later in a campaign,” Biden said.
“So there's a long way to go in this campaign and so I'm just going to keep moving, keep moving,” he said.
“And because look, I got more work to do. We've got more work to finish. We made so much progress. Think about where we are economically relative to the rest of the world. Name me a world leader who wouldn't want to trade places with our economy. We created over 800,000 manufacturing jobs, …so things are moving. We've got more to go,” the president said.
“Working class people still need help. Corporate greed is still at large. Corporate profits have doubled since the pandemic. They're coming down and so I'm optimistic about where things are going,” he asserted.
Biden added that he is seeking his re-election not for his legacy. “I'm in this to complete the job I started. As you recall, understandably, many of you and many economists thought my initial initiatives that I put forward can't do that because it's going to cause inflation.
Things are going to skyrocket. The debt's going to go up. What are you hearing now from mainstream economists?” “Sixteen economic Nobel laureates said I've done a hell of a job, that under my plan so far and what's going to happen in the future, if I'm reelected, that things are going to get much better. Our economy is growing. I was determined when I got elected to stop the trickle down economic theory that if the wealthy did very well, everybody else would do well,” the president said.
“I'm not anti-corporate, but corporate profits have doubled since the pandemic, doubled. It's time things get back in order a little bit. It's time. For example, if I'm reelected, we're going to make sure that rents are kept at a five percent increase of corporate rents for apartments and the like and homes are limited to five percent,” he said.
Biden refuted reports that he told his aides that he needed to go to bed earlier and end meetings around eight in the evening.
“That's not true… what I said was, instead of my every day starting at seven and going to bed at midnight, it'd be smarter for me to pace myself a little more. And I said, for example, the 8:00, 7:00, 6:00 stuff, instead of starting the fundraiser at 9:00, start at 8:00. People get to go home by 10:00. That's what I'm talking about,” he said.
When asked about what changed his mind when in 2020 he said that he would be the bridge candidacy for a younger, fresher generation of Democratic leaders, Biden said: “What changed was the gravity of the situation I inherited in terms of the economy, our foreign policy and domestic division.”
