‘I’m staying in the race’: Biden defiant on key campaign day as pressure to withdraw keeps building

A defiant President Joe Biden told voters he isn’t going anywhere and pledged to deny Donald Trump a second White House term, even as he continues to face more calls to stand down from the 2024 presidential race amid questions over his fitness to compete for and serve out a second four-year term.

Biden, who spoke to a raucous crowd of supporters in Madison, Wisconsin on Friday, said he is his party’s nominee in this year’s presidential election because of “millions of Democrats like you” who voted for him “in primaries all across America.”

“The voters did that, and despite that, some folks don’t seem to care who you voted for… they’re trying to push me out of the race,” he said, referring to the growing chorus of Democrats who want him to exit the race on account of his rambling, meandering and disturbing performance against Trump just over a week ago.

As the crowd of supporters chanted “let’s go Joe” and “four more years,” Biden declared that he is not going to bow to that pressure.

“Let me say as clearly as I can: I’m staying in the race. I’ll beat Donald Trump,” he said. “I beat him in 2020… and by the way, we’re going to do it again in 2024!”

Continuing, Biden said he would not permit “one 90-minute debate” to “wipe out three and a half years of work,” and touted his accomplishments as president, including creating “15 million new jobs” and reducing student debt for “nearly five million Americans” while putting the first Black woman on the US Supreme Court.

Earlier in the day as he departed Washington for the campaign stop, the 81-year-old chief executive was asked whether he still believes he can defeat his likely opponent, former president Donald Trump, in November’s general election.

“Yes,” Biden said, taking a