WASHINGTON: After months of deliberation, former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday announced his decision to run for president for a third time.
The announcement came in a campaign video released Thursday morning.
In his campaign announcement video, Biden rebuked the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 and President Donald Trump’s handling of the aftermath.
“He said there were quote some very fine people on both sides,” Biden said. “With those words, the President of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.”
Biden framed the 2020 race as a “battle for the soul of this nation.”
“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 the video. “That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States.”
Later Thursday, Biden will attend a fundraiser in Philadelphia before appearing on ABC’s “The View” for his first television interview since the announcement on Friday. On Monday, he will hold his first official event in Pittsburgh, followed by a swing through early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina in the coming weeks.
On May 18, Biden will host a rally in Philadelphia where he will “lay out his vision for unifying America with respected leadership on the world stage,” according to his campaign.
