Joe Biden Announces Reelection Bid: ‘Let’s Finish the Job’

President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday morning that he is formally running for a second term.

The president has spent months hinting that he intended to run again, but now he’s made it official.

"When I ran for president four years ago, I said we are in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are,” the president said in a video. “The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer…This is not a time to be complacent.”

The video announcement highlights various parts of his first term and includes images from the January 6 Insurrection.

Far-right political figures Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — who has ushered in a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation as governor — and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — a noted conspiracy theorist who often targets LGBTQ+ people in her remarks — are featured in the clip.

Biden calls them “MAGA extremists” in the video, adding that they are “dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books, and telling people who they can love. All while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote.”

The announcement comes four years to the day that Biden announced his 2020 bid.

Biden, who is 80, is the oldest president in U.S. history. That’s something some Democrats and independents have voiced concern over.

Unlike 2020, Biden isn’t expected to face a serious primary challenge.

In a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, half of Democrats and progressive independents said they had a better chance with Biden than with someone else.

The announcement will now lay out a potential rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump who announced in November that he’d run again for the presidency. Things are different this time around though.

Biden was seen as a lukewarm choice in 2020, which saw voters turn out against Trump. Now, Biden has had several big wins legislatively speaking with bills on infrastructure, health care, and semiconductor production.

Trump is also a weaker political candidate with the rise of DeSantis and witnessed during the 2022 midterms that saw many Trump-backed candidates lose.

On LGBTQ+ rights, Biden has done a lot.

During his time as president, Biden has supported LGBTQ+ rights through executive orders intended to fight discrimination to signing the Respect for Marriage law that codified marriage equality.

He’s also been a vocal supporter of transgender rights, especially the rights of trans kids.