President Biden has insisted he could have beaten his rival Donald Trump in the 2024 election — while acknowledging he may not have survived another four years in the Oval Office.
In an interview with USA Today published Wednesday, Biden, 82, said that while it was perhaps too boastful of him to say so, he was convinced he could have triumphed in a rematch against the Republican nominee.
“It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes, based on the polling that…,” the oldest-ever president began to answer, before being interrupted by USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page during a rapid-fire round of questions.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Biden never spoke with his veteran pollster John Anzalone during the entirety of the 2024 campaign, with the survey junkie passing on his notes only in memos to aides.
Page noted in her write-up of the interview that the president kept index cards on his desk full of “talking points and statistics,” but said “he glanced at them only once.”
“Do you think you would’ve had the vigor to serve another four years in office?” she also asked.
“I don’t know. That’s why I thought when I first announced, talking to Barack [Obama] about it, I said I thought I was the person,” Biden answered.
“I had no intention of running after [son] Beau died — for real, not a joke,” he went on. “And then when Trump was running again for re-election, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him.
“But I also wasn’t looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old. And so I did talk about passing the baton. But I don’t know. Who the hell knows? So far, so good. But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?” Biden added.
Biden has held the fewest press conferences of any commander-in-chief since at least President Ronald Reagan — but spilled plenty of fresh details in his USA Today sit-down about his scrapped re-election effort, plans for the final days of his lame-duck term and his legacy.
Democrats ousted Biden as presumptive nominee in a July coup following his disastrous June 27 debate against Trump.
The incumbent spoke haltingly and with a raspy voice throughout the forum, descending at times into incoherence with statements such as “We finally beat Medicare.”
Post-debate polls showed Trump surging ahead of Biden, though no Democratic alternative appeared ready to take on the Republican nominee — including Vice President Kamala Harris.
Internally, the situation was far more dire.
Biden’s pollsters and top advisers met with Senate Democrats at their campaign headquarters in Washington, DC, a few weeks after the debate.
According to the New York Times, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) pushed for the president to submit to cognitive testing and announce the results publicly to prove he had the mental fitness for another four years.
Some medical experts who specialize in treating Parkinson’s disease even believed Biden’s slow, “shuffling gait” exhibited some of “the classic features of neurodegeneration” — as the president’s verbal stumbles also increased in regularity.
Internal polls further showed younger voters, a key demographic for Democrats, shifting toward Trump, the Times reported in August.
Congressional Dems — including House Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — and deep-pocketed donors like Hollywood star George Clooney quickly began calling for Biden to step aside, which he did on July 21.
With Biden’s endorsement, the 60-year-old Harris took his place at the top of the ticket, forestalling an unprecedented “mini-primary” or floor fight at the Democratic convention in Chicago.
The veep went on to lose all seven critical swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — to Trump, who will return to the White House on Jan. 20.
Biden also revealed Wednesday that he was still mulling pardons for potential targets of a second Trump administration — including former Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney and ex-White House COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“A little bit of it depends on who he puts in what positions,” the 46th president explained. “I was very straightforward with Trump when he got elected. I invited him immediately to the White House. I spent two hours with him. He talked about, he was very complimentary about some of the economic things I had done. And he talked about — he thought I was leaving with a good record, kind of thing. I tried to make it clear that there was no need, and it was counterintuitive for his interest to go back and try to settle scores.”
“And did he give you an answer on what he was going to do?” Page inquired.
“Well, he didn’t. But he didn’t say, ‘No, I’m going to…’ You know. He didn’t reinforce it. He just basically listened,” Biden replied, later noting that he has not decided yet whether to grant pre-emptive pardons for Cheney or Fauci.
The president already announced a blanket pardon for his son Hunter for tax and gun felonies, as well as any crimes potentially committed between Jan. 1, 2014, and Dec. 1, 2024.
“I think there are certain people like, if he were to, I don’t want to name their names. I’ll tell you off the record,” he added, later saying somewhat incoherently: “But there are other parties that we’re following through on to determine that, rectifying some of the, correcting powder-cocaine difference, things like that.”
Asked about his legacy, Biden demurred.
“Historians will talk about [how] great the impact was, but it didn’t [have] any immediate impact on people’s lives,” he assessed. “I think we would’ve been a hell of a lot better off had we been able to go much harder at getting some of these projects in the ground quicker.”
Biden also claimed that he “meant” it when he said he wasn’t going to pardon his son several times before the election — before announcing the sweeping pardon last month — but claimed that “two factors” came to light later that made it necessary.
“Number one, that he had paid all his taxes. He paid them late,” the president claimed, a reference to Hunter Biden having already paid off all of his tax delinquency in 2021.
However, Biden also entirely forgot in which years the tax crimes occurred.
“This was back in ’80, I mean excuse me, in 2000 and… What year was it? Anyway, long time ago,” he added. “And that he paid it all. And that there were hundreds of people with only 3, 4, or $500,000 who were being, moving on civilly.”
“And then the second thing I found out was that on this purchasing a gun, at the time, you have to sign a form if you’re under the influence of anything. Well, I don’t even know whether they got straight on the signing of the form. But the point was, no one’s ever been tried on that. Nobody,” he also claimed, wrongly.
The rapper Kodak Black, one of several defendants to face jail time for writing false information on a gun-purchase form, was sentenced to 46 months in prison for writing down a wrong Social Security number on his firearm application.
Former Baltimore police commissioner Darryl De Sousa, who was prosecuted by the same team that worked under special counsel David Weiss on the Hunter cases, also spent 10 months in jail after being accused of skipping out on just $67,000 in taxes.
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to not forking over $1.4 million to the IRS on income he earned between 2016 and 2019. He was likely facing just three years in prison.
