US President Joe Biden said Thursday that he is well-qualified to run for president in November elections amid calls that he withdraw his candidacy.
“I think I’m the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again,” said Biden during a press conference on the final day of a NATO summit, referring to his rival, former President Donald Trump.
“I’m not in this for my legacy. I’m in this to complete the job I started,” he added.
Biden said he’s going to keep moving “because I got more work to do. We got more work to finish. We made so much progress. Think about it.”
“I’m optimistic about where things are going,” he added.
His remarks came in response to growing calls from Democratic lawmakers, donors and supporters for Biden to drop out of the race.
Biden also said that US allies at the NATO summit encouraged him to run for president again.
“I’ve not had any of my European allies come up here and say, ‘Joe, don’t run. What I hear them say is ‘You’ve gotta win. You can’t let this guy come forward, he’d be a disaster,'” he told reporters.
Biden has been facing calls to withdraw his candidacy since his poor performance against Trump in their first presidential debate on June 27.
If reelected, the Democratic president will be 86 years old when he leaves office.
– POSSIBLE TRUMP WIN FOR EUROPE
When asked about a possible win by Trump in the presidential elections, Biden said foreign policy has never been his strong point.
“He seems to have an affinity to people who are authoritarian. That worries Europe. That worries Poland, and nobody, including the people of Poland, think if he wins, things will stop in Ukraine and that will be the end of it,” Biden said.
“What I can say is, I think I am the best qualified person to do the job, to make sure that Ukraine succeeds, that the European alliance stays strong,” he added.
Asked if he could handle Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping three years from now, Biden responded: “I’m ready to deal with them now and three years from now.”
He also said he has “no good reason to talk to Putin right now,” but added “there’s not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behavior.”
“I think that I’m prepared to talk to any leader who wants to talk, including if Putin called me and wanted to talk,” he said. “My point is I’m prepared to talk to anybody, but I don’t see any inclination.”
DETERMINED TO FINISH GAZA CEASE-FIRE DEAL ‘AND BRING AN END TO THIS WAR’
Addressing reporters at the end of NATO’s three-day leader-level summit, Biden said both Israel and Hamas have agreed to what he called a deal “framework” with negotiators currently working to finalize the details.
“These are difficult, complex issues. There’s still gaps to close. We’re making progress. The trend is positive,” he said at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where he held a nearly hour-long press conference. “And I’m determined to get this deal done and bring an end to this war, which should end now.”
Israel has waged a devastating offensive across the Gaza Strip for over nine months following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 that killed some 1,200 people. About 250 others were taken back to the coastal enclave as hostages.
Over 38,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, with much of the territory of 2.3 million people reduced to ruins. Most of the civilian population has been displaced and is at imminent risk of famine as Israel maintains stringent restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
The US attempted to craft a workaround solution to the aid delivery problem by building a temporary pier on the Gaza coast. Construction was finished on May 17, but National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced Thursday that all operations would cease and the pier would be dismantled after a series of mishaps and an ongoing inability to get aid to the starving Palestinians in dire need.
“I do anticipate that in relatively short order, we will wind down pier operations,” Sullivan told reporters at the NATO summit. “The real issue right now is not about getting aid into Gaza. It’s about getting aid around Gaza effectively.”
