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President Joe Biden on Tuesday said he might not be seeking another term in office if Donald Trump wasn't also running, according to multiple media reports.
"If Trump wasn't running, I'm not sure I'd be running," Biden said at a campaign fundraiser in Massachusetts, Bloomberg reported.
Throughout the current presidential campaign, Biden, 81, has been dogged by questions about his fitness for office given his age, as has the 77-year-old Trump. Various polls have shown voters are concerned about Biden's age, and there have been calls from some members of his own party for him to step aside for a younger candidate.
During Tuesday's event, Biden expressed why he feels compelled to run with Trump being the most likely nominee for the Republican Party.
"We cannot let him win for the sake of our country," Biden said of Trump.
Newsweek reached out to the White House via email on Tuesday for comment.
National polls indicate the race between Biden and Trump to be close, and a Tuesday survey showed Biden's chances of reelection could also be threatened by 51-year-old GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley.
The Messenger/Harris poll found the former South Carolina governor with a 4 percentage point advantage over Biden in a theoretical head-to-head match-up. The same poll found Trump led Biden by 7 percentage points. The margin of error in the poll was plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
Though Biden is the oldest president in American history, his supporters tout his regular exercise regime as evidence of his health while also saying his age has resulted in wisdom and experience.
Bloomberg noted that Biden joked about his age during another fundraiser on Tuesday.
"It's hell turning 40 twice," he said.
Trump's age and fitness for office have also been called into question by his detractors, including recently by The Lincoln Project. The political action committee (PAC) founded by moderate Republicans has targeted Trump in new ads that contain gaffes from the former president.
"Face it Donald, you're just projecting when you call Joe Biden old," the narration in one recent ad from the PAC said. "He's stronger than you, fitter than you, smarter than you, a better man and a better president ... anyone can see it."
Trump slammed the group in a post on his media platform Truth Social late Monday night and made apparently false claims that the ads used artificial intelligence (AI) to cast him in an unfavorable light.
"The perverts and losers at the failed and once disbanded Lincoln Project, and others, are using A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) in their Fake television commercials in order to make me look as bad and pathetic as Crooked Joe Biden, not an easy thing to do," Trump wrote. "Fox News shouldn't run these ads, just as low ratings CNN & MSDNC will not, under any circumstances, run negative ads on Biden or the Democrats."
Update 12/05/23, 5:45 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to include more background information.
About the writer
Jon Jackson is a News Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more