Former Vice President Joseph Biden has announced, formally, his intention to seek the Democratic nomination to challenge President Trump in 2020.
With his announcement on Thursday, Biden hopes to use his experience and global stature in a bid to lead a party increasingly defined by a younger generation that might be skeptical of his age and ideological moderation.
Mr. Biden, 76, is set to offer himself as a levelheaded leader for a country wracked by political conflict, a rationale he believes could attract a broad cross-section of voters who want to move on from Mr. Trump.
The New York Times reports that In a three-and-a-half minute video laying out his reasons for running, Biden began by recalling the white supremacist march through Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 and Mr. Trump’s comment that there were “very fine people on both sides.” In that moment, Mr. Biden said, “I knew the threat to our nation was unlike any I’d ever seen in my lifetime.”
“We are in the battle for the soul of this nation,” Mr. Biden said. “I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time.”
