Near The End Of His Vice Presidency, Joe Biden Suggested How Long He'd Stay In Office

President Joe Biden never explicitly said he would serve only one term in the White House.

At times in the 2020 campaign, Biden suggested he didn’t want two terms, saying he envisioned himself as “as a bridge, not as anything else.”

As the furor over his poor debate performance last month has mushroomed into growing calls from Democrats for him to quit the race, Biden acknowledged in an interview with BET this week that he intended to be a transition candidate, but the threat of Donald Trump compelled him to run again.

And in his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad,” Biden suggested he didn’t expect his working life to go beyond 2025, much less his political career.

Biden recounted then-president Barack Obama asking him over lunch at the White House, in January 2015, “How do you want to spend the rest of your life?”

Biden was 73 at the time, and in his answer to Obama he gave himself only one more decade to make his mark. He felt he couldn’t confide in the president his true desire to run, so instead he laid out two options.

“I could have a good ten years with my family, laying the foundation of financial security for them and spending more time with them. Or I could have ten years trying to help change the country and the world for the better,” Biden wrote.

“If the second is within reach,” he recalled telling Obama, “I think that’s how I should spend the rest of my life.”

Obviously, Biden’s plans changed ― in his conversation with Obama he envisioned retiring in 2025 after serving two terms in the White House, not just one. But it’s a striking comment in the context of his current push, as already the oldest president in U.S. history, for a second term that would end when he’s 86.

A decade ago, as now, many in the