President Joe Biden is not a man of yesterday, or even the day before yesterday. That will be his core message when he addresses the nation on Wednesday night, just three days after withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race and naming Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee.
It will be only his fourth Oval Office address of his presidency, and potentially his last, as he wants to preserve some sort of symbolic significance for his final months in office.
According to multiple reports, the octogenarian Trump will be desperate to shed the lame duck label in the months leading up to the selection of his successor, and will likely use his Oval Office speech to convince Americans that he is a vigilant, proactive man who will make tough decisions and take down Russia’s continued aggression in Ukraine.
The 8 p.m. ET remarks are expected to last about eight to 10 minutes and will come a week after Biden was booted from a campaign event in Las Vegas after testing positive for coronavirus.
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—Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 23, 2024
“I’m not going anywhere,” a hoarse Biden said in a phone call to Harris at a campaign rally in Delaware on Monday, adding that he would “work hard” both as president and on the campaign trail.
During the call, Trump made clear he remained hopeful about progress on many fronts: “I have six months left in my presidency, and I’m determined to accomplish all I can on both foreign and domestic policy,” he said, listing efforts to curb gun violence, expand child and elderly care, reduce prescription drug costs and halt climate change.
He also spoke about efforts to broker a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, expressing optimism that a ceasefire could come soon.
The 81-year-old Democrat reiterated his pledge of action on X and previewed a primetime event to discuss “what’s coming next and how we get the job done for the American people.”
Tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. ET, I will address the nation from the Oval Office to outline what lies ahead and how I will finish the job for the American people.
— President Biden (@POTUS) July 23, 2024
But in a sign that Biden is already a thing of the past, AFP Reports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to meet separately with visiting Harris this week, but Trump said in a post on his Truth social media platform that he would meet with the Israeli leader on Friday at the Republican’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Despite the snub, Biden isn’t looking to simply fade away, reports the Associated Press.
[Biden’s] Trump is trying to overcome a defining force his lame-duck predecessors struggled to overcome: diminished relevance, and he is “determined to accomplish everything I can” in his final six months in the White House.
He is the first sitting president not to seek reelection since President Lyndon Baines Johnson resigned in 1968 due to growing unrest over America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.
University of Chicago political scientist William Howell said lame duck status necessarily constrains the presidency but does not necessarily cripple it, the Associated Press reported.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has already spoken out against the idea, saying, “If Joe Biden is unfit to run for president, then he is unfit to serve. He must resign immediately,” Breitbart News reported.
Howell said Biden may be hoping to become an overwhelming force in the campaign after complying with pressure from deep-pocketed donors who threatened to withhold funding if he didn’t resign as instructed.
“His most important job over the next few months will be to create the conditions for Kamala Harris to succeed,” Howell said.
