President Biden said Thursday on a trip to Europe that he would be “very fortunate” if he were to square off against former President Donald Trump again in 2024, using an emergency NATO summit to promote his possible reelection.
“The next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me,” said Mr. Biden, who will turn 81 in 2024.
The president also touted himself as the world’s senior statesman, as NATO grapples with its response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I don’t think you’ll find any European leader who thinks I am not up to the job,” Mr. Biden told reporters in Brussels, Belgium.
He said he is focused now on Democrats winning the midterm elections this year so that he will remain able to “deal in a rational way with American foreign policy and lead the world — be the leader of the free world.”
Breaking with the tradition of presidents avoiding discussions of domestic politics while overseas, Mr. Biden also criticized Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, during the congressional counting of the Electoral College votes.
“I say to people at home: Imagine if we sat and watched the doors of the [German] Bundestag broken down and police officers killed and hundreds of people storming in,” Mr. Biden said. “Or imagine if we saw that happen in the British Parliament or whatever — how would we feel?”
Mr. Biden was responding to a reporter’s question about the 2024 election and “widespread concerns” in Europe that Mr. Trump might get elected again. The reporter, who worked for Germany’s Der Spiegel, asked whether Mr. Biden and NATO were taking steps on Russia sanctions or other moves to prevent their actions “from being undone two years from now.”
The president said “it’s not an illogical question for someone to ask,” but said he’s not worried about his current actions affecting the U.S. presidential race in 2024.
“I made a determination [that] no election is worth my not doing exactly what I think is the right thing,” Mr. Biden said. “I’m too long in the tooth to fool with this any longer. We’re a long way off on elections, a long way off. My focus of any election is on making sure that we retain the House and the United States Senate so that I have the room to continue to do the things that I’ve been able to do in terms of grow the economy…”
He also recalled that, at his first Group of Seven nations summit in Great Britain, he told his counterparts, “America’s back.” He said another head of state responded, “For how long?”
“I don’t criticize anybody for asking that question,” Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Biden also recalled for the international audience his revulsion at Mr. Trump’s reaction in 2017 to a violent clash in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white nationalists, who opposed the city’s decision to remove a statue of confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and left-wing Antifa counter-protesters.
“I had no intention to running for president again … until I saw those folks coming out of the fields in Virginia carrying torches and carrying Nazi banners and literally singing the same vile rhyme that they used in Germany in the early ’20s — or ’30s, I should say,” Mr. Biden said. “And that … gentleman you mentioned [Mr. Trump] was asked what he thought, and a young woman was killed, a protester. He was asked what he thought [and] he said, ‘They’re very good people on both sides.’ And that’s when I decided I wasn’t going to be quiet any longer.”
Mr. Trump said at a press conference in August 2017, “You had some very bad people in that group,” referring to the white nationalists. He also said, “But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”
Mr. Trump edges out Mr. Biden in a hypothetical 2024 matchup in an Emerson College poll released this week. The survey found Mr. Trump with 45% support and Mr. Biden with 42%.
More than four out of five respondents — 83% — said they were experiencing “some hardship” due to price increases on everyday items, according to the March 18-20 survey of 1,023 registered U.S. voters.
Most voters (59%) said they view Mr. Trump favorably, while less than half of voters (47%) viewed Mr. Biden favorably.
“Biden struggles among independent voters: just 28% approve of the job he is doing while 64% disapprove,” said Emerson College Poll Executive Director Spencer Kimball. “When looking at the midterm generic congressional ballot, independents break 28% for Democrats, 42% with Republicans, and 31% are undecided.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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