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President Joe Biden said in an interview airing Wednesday that he might reconsider his decision to stay in the race against Donald Trump if a medical condition emerged and was diagnosed by doctors — giving the clearest indication yet that he may be faltering in his vow to seek a second term.
“Is there anything that you would look to you, personally… to say, ‘If I see that, I will reevaluate?’” BET host Ed Gordon asked the 81-year-old in an interview conducted Tuesday.
“If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, ‘You got this problem, that problem,’” Biden said in an excerpt released Wednesday.
❗️ Joe Biden will leave the presidential race if he has health problems — media
“If I had any health problems, if somebody — if the doctors came in and said you have this problem, that’s a problem,” Joe Biden told interviewer Ed Gordon. pic.twitter.com/7pkPqyjI9X
— * (@SUGMINKUKELMO) July 17, 2024
Mr. Biden has said repeatedly that none of his doctors have told him he has a serious medical condition. Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House physician, wrote after the president’s physical in February that Mr. Biden is “a healthy, active, robust, 81-year-old male who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”
But his disastrous performance at a debate with Trump last month, which prompted a wave of calls by even Democratic allies to step aside, raised questions about his health and acuity.
The comment is the latest in a series of shifting explanations by the president about what might cause him to reconsider. In an interview with ABC News this month, Mr. Biden said he would drop out only if the “Lord almighty” told him to. At a news conference in Washington several days later, he said he would stay in the race unless aides came to him with proof that he could never win.
In the same interview, Biden said that he feels the need to run again — rather than serve as a “transitional” leader, as he said in 2020 — because the country is “so divided.”
“I said I was going to be a transitional candidate, and I thought I would be able to move on from this and pass it on to somebody else,” he said. “But I didn’t anticipate things getting so, so, so divided. And quite frankly, I think the only thing age brings is a little bit of wisdom.”
“I think I’ve demonstrated that I know how to get things done for the country in spite of the fact that we were told we couldn’t get it done,” Biden continued. “But there’s more to do, and I’m reluctant to walk away from that.”
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