Joe Biden Is Running For US President In 2020

WASHINGTON Ending months of speculation, former Vice President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he’s running for president in 2020, joining a crowded field of Democrats eager to take on President Donald Trump .

“The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy... everything that has made America — America — is at stake,” Biden said in a video announcing his candidacy. The video was distributed across social media platforms. 

Biden has steadily led  the race for the Democratic nomination in early polling, and he’s not lacking in confidence. He declared in December that he was “the most qualified person” to be president and said the issues facing the country “are the issues that have been in my wheelhouse, that I’ve worked on my whole life.”

Biden all but confirmed his run during a speech on April 5 , when he defended himself with tone-deaf responses to nearly 10 women who have come forward in recent weeks with allegations of inappropriate and unwanted touching.

“I’m sorry I didn’t understand more,” he told reporters, after twice joking about the touching during his speech to laughs from the predominantly male audience. “I’m not sorry for any of my intentions. I’m not sorry for anything that I have ever done. I’ve never been disrespectful, intentionally, to a man or a woman.”

The allegations spotlighted Biden’s mixed legacy on women’s rights issues, a political liability in the Me Too era.

Biden’s run seemed like a foregone conclusion as he teased his prospective campaign for several months. He reportedly floated the idea of choosing Democratic rising star Stacey Abrams as his running mate in an attempt to assuage criticisms of himself as an old white man amid the diverse field of 2020 Democrats . (Abrams has repeatedly denied they had any such conversation.)

From his 36 years in the Senate and eight years as vice president under President Barack Obama , Biden’s strengths are clear.

He’s well-versed in foreign policy and judicial matters, having chaired both of the relevant Senate committees on these issues. He helped write and pass the Violence Against Women Act. As Obama’s second-in-command, he was a key negotiator with Republican leaders in Congress and helped resolve the debt ceiling crisis in 2011 and the impending fiscal cliff in 2012.

But he has obvious weak spots in his political record. At 76, Biden could easily be the oldest president elected in U.S. history. As a senator representing Delaware, he supported the Iraq War and helped author the 1994 crime bill, which fueled an epidemic of mass incarceration . He still defends the crime bill , which he praised  in his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad.” 

Biden has also been criticized for failing to protect law professor Anita Hill  after she accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in 1991. As the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden would not call witnesses to corroborate Hill’s story and did little to stop personal attacks from Republicans .

As the Me Too movement has taken hold, Biden has expressed regret for how Hill was treated. But he has absolved himself of any responsibility for it and has issued a series of nonapologies to Hill, which she has criticized as insufficient.

Addressing the issue again in March, Biden lamented that “I wish I could have done something.” 

“To this day, I regret that I couldn’t get her the type of hearing she deserved,” he said at an award ceremony in New York honoring students working to combat sexual assault on college campuses. 

Biden’s announcement comes after more than a dozen other Democratic contenders have announced their entries into the race, including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro , Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg are also running.

This is Biden’s third time running for president. He ran in 1988 and then again in 2008. He considered a run in 2016 but opted against it after losing his son Beau to cancer.

In a December interview , he said he’s prepared to address all of his potential weaknesses as a candidate including his tendency to commit gaffes but said they pale in comparison to Trump’s worst qualities.

“I am a gaffe machine, but, my God, what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can’t tell the truth,” Biden said. “I’m ready to litigate all those things. The question is, what kind of nation are we becoming? What are we going to do? Who are we?”

Hayley Miller contributed reporting.