Joe Biden 'not sure' he would seek re-election if Trump was not running in 2024

Former US president has called Joe Biden 'destroyer of American democracy', despite his own efforts to overturn 2020 election

US President Joe Biden waves as he steps from Air Force One upon his arrival in Boston, Massachusetts. Reuters

US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that he was not sure he would be seeking re-election if Republican Donald Trump was not running, arguing the former president posed a grave threat to American democracy.

“If Trump wasn't running, I'm not sure I'd be running,” Mr Biden said at a fundraising event for his 2024 campaign outside Boston. “We cannot let him win.”

His comments follow those made by Mr Trump, who called the President a threat to America – despite his own efforts to overturn 2020 election.

On Saturday, Mr Trump repeated his long-standing contention that the four criminal indictments against him show Mr Biden is misusing the federal justice system.

“He’s been weaponising government against his political opponents like a Third World political tyrant,” Mr Trump told a crowd in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“Biden and his radical left allies like to pose as standing up as allies of democracy,” Mr Trump continued. “Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy; Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy.”

Ammar Moussa, a Biden campaign spokesman, told the Associated Press at the weekend: “Donald Trump’s America in 2025 is one where the government is his personal weapon to lock up his political enemies. You don’t have to take our word for it – Trump has admitted it himself.”