Joe Biden, the president of the United States, stated on Friday that he planned to defeat his Republican presidential opponent Donald Trump in the upcoming November election.
He showed no indication that he would contemplate withdrawing from the race following a lacklustre debate performance that concerned his fellow Democrats, Reuters reported.
“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” Biden, 81, said at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, one day after the head-to-head showdown with Trump, 78, which was widely viewed as a defeat for the Democrat president.
“I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he said, as the crowd chanted “four more years.”
“I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job. The stakes are too high,” Biden said.
Biden’s verbal stumbles and occasionally rambling answers during the debate raised worries among voters about his ability to serve another four-year term and led some Democrats to ponder the possibility of replacing him as their candidate for the November 5 US election.
In a “all hands on deck” meeting on Friday, the campaign reassured staffers that Biden had no intentions of exiting the race, according to two people familiar with the meeting.
Though Trump put forward a series of falsehoods throughout the debate, the focus afterward was squarely on Biden, especially among Democrats.
But several of the party’s most senior figures, including former president Barack Obama, said they were sticking with Biden.
“Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and somebody who only cares about himself,” Obama wrote on X. The New York Times editorial board, which endorsed Biden in 2020, called on him to drop out of the race.
“The greatest public service Mr Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election,” the editorial said.
Meanwhile, questions about Trump’s fitness for office have also arisen over his conviction last month in New York for covering up a hush money payment to a porn star, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his chaotic term in office. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, just days before his party convenes to formally nominate him.
Source: BBC
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