‘To come back next year’
With 2024 just around the corner, President Biden revealed his New Year’s resolution: retaining the White House.
“Mr. President, what’s your New Year’s resolution, sir?” a reporter asked Biden late Saturday as he departed the Too Chez Restaurant and Bar in St. Croix, where he and first lady Jill Biden had dinner with their granddaughter Natalie.
“To come back next year,” the president quipped, before adding, “that’s the biggest one right now.”
Biden has been vacationing in St. Croix, which is nestled in the US Virgin Islands, since last week, and is due back in Washington, DC on Tuesday.
His six-day getaway entailed a secluded stay at the lush beachfront home of Bill and Connie Neville, wealthy backers.
The 81-year-old is facing a competitive reelection battle in 2024.
Polling has largely shown him underwater when pitted against former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
Both men appear poised for a rematch of the 2020 election contest, where Biden emerged victorious.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden said at a fundraising event near Boston earlier this month.
“We cannot let him win.”
Biden’s allies have brushed aside the string of lackluster polling, emphasizing the president’s record of exceeding the expectations of the pundit class.
“Time and again, Biden beats expectations. Happened in 2020, happened in 2022, happened on Tuesday night,” communications director Michael Tyler told reporters back in November.
Tyler’s remarks came after Democrats scored several victories in Ohio, New Jersey, Kentucky, Virginia and elsewhere in the off-year elections.
“You see days, weeks, months of breathless predictions about how terrible things are gonna be for Joe Biden,” he added, “followed by an election day with historic victories.”
If either Biden or Trump were to win the election on Nov. 5, 2024 and sit for a full term, they would become the oldest-serving president in US history — a title Biden currently enjoys.
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