US President Joe Biden “doesn’t want to quit” and “may very well stay” in the race for the White House, Republican rival Donald Trump has said. According to Trump, the Democratic Party will find it difficult to force Biden to quit.
In the two weeks since he debated a visibly frail and confused Biden, Trump has stayed out of the public eye. Meanwhile, liberal media outlets have run articles questioning Biden’s mental health, as Democratic donors and lawmakers reportedly weigh their options for forcing the 81-year-old to suspend his reelection campaign.
In a phone interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday night, Trump predicted that Biden will withstand the pressure to step down.
“It looks to me like he may very well stay in,” Trump told Hannity. “He’s got an ego and he doesn’t want to quit. This isn’t necessarily a very positive thing for our country, but I think he might very well stay in.”
Biden himself has vowed to stay in the race, telling MSNBC on Monday that he is “not going anywhere.” In a letter to Democrats in Congress earlier that day, Biden insisted that he “wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024.”
Biden won the support of nearly 99% of Democratic delegates during the party’s largely symbolic primary elections this year. This victory gives the president “a lot of power,” Trump told Hannity, adding that removing him from office via a constitutional amendment could be the only option available to the Democrats.
“Unless they use the 25th Amendment… he has all the power,” Trump explained. “He has the delegates, he doesn’t have to get out. There’s nothing they can do to get him out.”
Should this come to pass, Trump said that he would expect to face Vice President Kamala Harris in November’s presidential election.
“I think that [the Democrats] are very concerned about the vote if it’s not her,” he said. “They are gun-shy, they don’t want to do it any other way. It seems that if he gets out for whatever reason – and I don’t think he wants to get out – but if he gets out then it will be her.”
Trump offered a cruder assessment of Biden’s chances in the days after the debate. In leaked footage filmed at one of his golf courses in late June, Trump could be heard telling a small group of supporters that Biden would surely be “quitting the race,” calling the president an “old, broken-down pile of crap.” Turning to Harris, Trump said that while she would be a better opponent, she is “so pathetic” and “so f**king bad.”