Fox News host Shannon Bream said Tuesday she got the sense that President Joe Biden is not confident he will run for a second term.
Bream attended an off-the-record luncheon with the president and fellow members of the press prior to the State of the Union. She then stated that the president may not announce an awaited second presidential bid.
“We’re all waiting here in Washington to find out if he’s actually going to run, but I felt like, we all had the conventional wisdom that weeks after getting done with this speech, that we would hear an announcement from him,” Bream said. “But I got the feeling today at this off-the-record lunch we had with him, I’m not sure he’s 100% percent decided exactly what he’s going to do, so I think this speech tonight was testing out some of those themes, but he still has two years left in this term before he moves onto a decision about the next.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly emphasized the president’s reported plan to run for re-election in the 2024 presidential race, despite public opposition. A New York Times/Siena poll found in July that 64% of Democratic voters do not want Biden to be the nominee in 2024, citing his age as the biggest concern.
To be clear, as the President has said repeatedly, he plans to run in 2024.
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) June 13, 2022
Biden will be 81 years old if he decides to run again, the oldest presidential candidate in history. Some political figures, including former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Democratic South Carolina Gov. Joe Cunningham, have expressed concern about his age.
The president’s approval ratings have consistently dropped throughout his presidency. A FiveThirtyEight poll found on Wednesday that 52% of Americans disapprove of the president’s job performance, while 43% approve.