First lady Jill Biden said there isn’t a chance in her book that President Biden will decide not to run for a second term.
“It’s Joe’s decision and we support whatever he wants to do. If he’s in, we’re there. If he wants to do something else, we’re there too,” Jill Biden told CNN in an interview while in Africa over the weekend.
“Not in my book,” she added when asked if there was a chance her husband would not seek reelection. “I’m all for it, of course.”
Also while in Africa, Jill Biden gave one of the strongest nods toward a 2024 bid from the president’s inner circle when she told The Associated Press in an interview that President Biden’s “not finished” with what he started.
The first lady also told CNN that there are no plans yet for a reelection announcement, pointing to her husband’s busy schedule.
“He said he intends to run so nothing’s been planned yet. I think, he’s been so busy with being in Ukraine, handling some of the crises at home. I think he’s putting that first, he’s putting America’s business before he’s putting his own,” she said.
President Biden has said that he intends to run for reelection and he is expected to make an official decision in the coming months. He has made nods to a reelection bid; in his State of the Union address, the president said about a dozen times that he wants to “finish the job.”
Meanwhile, White House aids and some Biden allies have shrugged off angst and chatter about whether Biden will really run for reelection at the age of 81, taking a dim view of media reports that suggest otherwise as an effort to put pressure on him to officially announce.
The first lady was on a five-day trip to Africa last week with her granddaughter, Naomi Biden, during which they visited Kenya and Namibia. The trip came after the president announced at the end of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December that he will travel to sub-Saharan Africa in 2023. He said at the time that there will also be visits to Africa from other officials, including his wife.