Biden Defiant in the Face of Critics Calling for Him to Drop From Presidential Race

TIME

Ignoring mounting calls from political allies, President Joe Biden doubled-down on his plans to run for re-election Thursday evening, telling reporters he is not worried about his legacy but rather is committed to finishing the job he started.

Transcript

00:00Mr. President, your political future has hung over the NATO summit a little bit this week.

00:07Speaker Pelosi made a point of suggesting that your decision on whether to stay in the

00:10race was still open.

00:12George Clooney and a handful of lawmakers have called on you to step aside.

00:17Reuters is reporting tonight that UAW leadership is concerned about your ability to win.

00:21UAW just endorsed me, but go ahead.

00:25Thank you.

00:26My question for you is, how are you incorporating these developments into your decision to stay?

00:33And separately, what concerns do you have about Vice President Harris's ability to beat

00:39Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket?

00:43Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president until I think she

00:48was not qualified to be president.

00:50So let's start there.

00:52Number one, the fact is that the consideration is that I think I'm the most qualified person

01:00to run for president.

01:02I beat him once and I will beat him again.

01:07Secondly, the idea, I served in the Senate a long time.

01:13The idea that senators and congressmen running for office worry about the ticket is not unusual.

01:23And I might add, there are at least five presidents running or incumbent presidents who had lower

01:30numbers than I have now, later in the campaign.

01:35So there's a long way to go in this campaign.

01:38And so I'm just going to keep moving.

01:42Keep moving.

01:43And because, look, I got more work to do.

01:45We've got more work to finish.

01:47There's so much.

01:48We made so much progress.

01:50Think about it.

01:51Think about where we are economically relative to the rest of the world.

01:55Name me a world leader who wouldn't want to trade places with our economy.

01:59We've created over 800,000 manufacturing jobs, 1.5 million.

02:04I mean, so things are moving.

02:06We got more to go.

02:08Working class people still have need help.

02:10Corporate greed is still at large.

02:13Their prices, corporate profits have doubled since the pandemic.

02:18They're coming down.

02:19And so I'm optimistic about where things are going.

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