US President Biden officially declares he will seek reelection in 2024

ANKARA

US President Joe Biden formally launched his reelection campaign Tuesday, appealing to Americans to help him "finish the job" as he seeks a second term in office.

Biden, 80, said in a three-minute video posted to social media that the 2024 campaign is fundamentally about whether Americans will enjoy "more rights or fewer" in the years ahead.

"Every generation has a moment where they have had to stand up for democracy. To stand up for their fundamental freedoms. I believe this is ours. That’s why I’m running for reelection as President of the United States. Join us. Let’s finish the job," Biden said on Twitter.

"Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms: cutting Social Security that you paid for your entire life while cutting taxes for the very wealthy, dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books and telling people who they can love, all while making it more difficult for you to vote," he added.

As expected, Biden announced Vice President Kamala Harris would be joining him as his running mate in seeking reelection. "We have made so much progress in our first two years, but there’s still so much more to do," she said

A member of the Democratic Party, Biden served 36 years in the US Senate and eight years as vice president under President Barack Obama. Already the oldest president in US history, Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term, raising questions among many over his capacity to hold America's highest office.

Previously, Ronald Reagan was the oldest American president. He ended his second term at the age of 77 and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease five years after he left office.

On Election Day 2024, former President Donald Trump will be 78 -- the same age Biden was when he was first elected president.

Biden has now officially joined Trump -- the first person from either party to announce a 2024 presidential run -- and a handful of other Republicans who will vie for their party's nomination.

While Biden's announcement marked the formal start of his campaign, he has spent months going around the country to tout his legislative victories, including a historic infrastructure revitalization bill, new funding to boost high-technology manufacturing and climate initiatives.

But Trump insisted in a lengthy statement that if you were to gather the "five worst presidents in American history, and put them together" they would not "have done the damage Joe Biden has done to our Nation in just a few short years. Not even close."

"American families are being decimated by the worst inflation in half a century. Banks are failing. Our currency is crashing and the dollar will soon no longer be the world standard," he said. "And Joe Biden has led us to the very brink of World War III."

Off the campaign trail, Trump is facing four criminal probes, including in Georgia, where prosecutors are examining whether he and his political allies sought to illegally change the outcome of the state's 2020 presidential election results, and a pair of federal investigations related to Trump's actions concerning the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection and his handling of classified documents after he left office.