Former President Donald Trump said Monday that Biden is likely to continue campaigning despite calls from some Democrats for him to step down following last month’s disastrous debate performance.
“It seems to me that he’ll probably stay. He has self-respect and he doesn’t want to resign,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “He doesn’t want to do that. It just seems to me that that’s what he wants.”
“I think Jill would love for him to stay. She seems to be enjoying it,” Trump added, referring to First Lady Jill Biden.
“He’ll probably stay, but if he does, nobody wants to resign like that. He’s going to be blaming himself for a long time. It’s going to be hard for him to resign in a way that they’re going to try to force him out,” Trump added.
Trump, who faces criminal charges for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, predicted that Vice President Harris would become the nominee if Biden dropped out, but said Biden was “all in” after securing an overwhelming majority of delegates in the primaries.
Biden has faced intense scrutiny from Democrats since his June 27 debate with Trump, during which he often struggled to get his points across and delivered a number of blowbacks on issues such as abortion and the economy.
Some House Democrats have suggested Biden should withdraw his candidacy or predict he will lose to Trump, while many other Democrats say Biden must demonstrate he is capable of campaigning more vigorously to beat Trump in November.
The Biden campaign counters that the president has been holding events and meeting with voters in recent days, while Trump has not held a public event since the day after the debate.
“An unmotivated Donald Trump has been on a 12-day campaign hiatus, but nothing has changed,” Biden campaign spokesman James Singer said in a statement.
“He’s still a habitual liar, he still has 34 convictions, he’s still going to destroy America with his Project 2025 agenda and be a dictator from day one in office, taking away our rights and increasing the burden on the middle class to give tax cuts to the wealthy and price-gouging corporations. And most importantly, he’s still going to lose to Joe Biden in November,” Singer added.
