Biden rolls out ad for reelection bid
At an afternoon news conference with South Korea’s president, Biden, 80, swatted away questions about his 42 percent job approval rating in part by arguing that most politicians running for reelection end up in roughly the same boat.
“I feel good, I feel excited about the prospects,” he said. “I think we’re on the verge of turning the corner in a way we haven’t in a long time.”
As for his age — the president would be 86 when he left office if reelected — Biden said such numbers don’t even compute with him.
“I can’t even guess how old I am,” he said. “I can’t even say the number, it doesn’t register with me. The only thing I can say is they’re going to see a race and they’re going to judge whether I have or don’t have it.”
He added: “Things are moving. And the reason I’m running again is there’s a job to finish.”
Biden spoke from the Rose Garden as he was hosting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for a state visit.
The president, who announced his reelection campaign on Tuesday, April 25, offered a sharp comparison of his tenure with that of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who also is a candidate once again.
“Think about what I inherited when I got elected. I inherited a nation in overwhelming debt, in the hole for the four years that he was president,” Biden said. “I inherited a nation that had a serious loss of credibility around the world.”
Biden’s first TV ad aims to flip the script on Republicans who have traditionally claimed the mantle of “freedom,” aiming to portray the GOP as part of an “extreme movement” bent on overturning elections, restricting access to abortion and undermining voters’ economic security. It will air in major markets in the six states the president carried in 2020 that are key to his path back to the White House. / AP