Biden 2024 news: White House botches question over term length as campaign embraces ‘Dark Brandon’ meme

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of US political developments as US president Joe Biden is widely expected to announce this week that he plans to run for a second term in the White House in 2024.

US president Joe Biden is expected to announce his 2024 re-election bid as early as Tuesday 25 April, exactly four years after he launched his last campaign for the White House.

At 81 years old, Mr Biden would be the oldest candidate to seek re-election. Polls have indicated that Americans are ready to move on from both Mr Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump.

However, Democrats’ strong performance in the 2022 midterm elections, when typically the party in power suffers widespread defeat in congressional races, bolstered the likelihood that Mr Biden would make another bid for the highest office in the land.

Mr Biden is expected to launch his new campaign via a video announcement.

Graeme Massie has more.

President Biden is expected to tap Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior White House adviser, to manage his re-election campaign, according to a person familiar with deliberations on the matter.

The person spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity because Chavez Rodriguez’s appointment has not been finalised and Biden has yet to formally launch his re-election campaign.

Chavez Rodriguez, a long-time Democratic party activist, also worked in Barack Obama’s White House. She’s the granddaughter of labour leader Cesar Chavez and labour activist Helen Fabela Chavez.

Aamer Madhani has more.

The president, his aides contend, has essentially been campaigning since Republicans took control of the House last year, and has focused on showing Americans how his administration is implementing massive new infrastructure, technology and climate laws, portraying Republicans as in the grip of the far-right at a time when Washington is nearing a crucial fight over raising the nation’s borrowing limit.

While advisers say Biden’s activities and message in the coming months will be largely indistinguishable from what he’s been doing over the last six months, the frame of reference will inevitably shift as voters increasingly tune in to 2024 political dynamics.

“President Biden is delivering and making the strong case for re-election before, during and after any formal campaign announcement,” says Democratic consultant and former Biden spokesman Scott Mulhauser.

“Rather than throwing darts at calendars, let’s focus on the president doing his job and doing it well, from an investing in America tour, an economy humming and unemployment at historic lows to a home run of a State of the Union, an expertly pulled-off Ukraine trip and more.”

Here’s more.

As we await news of the president’s likely annoucement of a fresh tilt at the White House, his attention is likely to be consumed by events in Sudan, where bloody violence between government and paramilitary forces has caused foreign countries to close their embassies and evacuate all diplomats and nationals.

Rituparna Chatterjee has more on the Americans fleeing Khartoum and warfare that the president himself has described as “unconscionable”.

With less than two years remaining until US voters will decide who will serve as president of the United States from January 2025 to January 2029, former Republican government officials are starting to jockey for position in the coming fight for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Meanwhile, at least one prominent Democrat (California governor Gavin Newsom) has reportedly pledged not to challenge Joe Biden in a Democratic primary.

As the 2024 campaign takes shape, Andrew Feinberg and Ariana Baio have the names you need to know.

Only about half of Democrats think President Biden should run again in 2024, a new poll shows, but a large majority say they’d be likely to support him if he became the nominee.

The poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 26 per cent of Americans overall want to see Biden run again — a slight recovery from the 22 per cent who said that in January.

Forty-seven per cent of Democrats say they want him to run, also up slightly from only 37 per cent who said that in January.

Here’s a deeper dive into the numbers.

Not much more than a week after Biden returned from his four-day jaunt to the island of Ireland, where he was warmly welcomed in fine style and made much of his Irish heritage, meeting with distant relatives and only slipping in the occasional gaffe, an envious Trump has announced his own journey across the Atlantic.

Here’s Eric Garcia on the obstacles the president is likely to continue to face from across the aisle even if he does secure a second term.

The president was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on 20 November 1942, meaning he is 80 years old at the time of writing, will turn 81 later this year and 82 two weeks after Election Day 2024.

During his first run at the presidency in 2020, Republican rival Donald Trump tried hard to convince the electorate that the veteran Democrat was over the hill, nicknaming him “Sleepy Joe” and insisting that his occasional gaffes were evidence of encroaching senility, a fairly outrageous position given that Trump himself is only four years younger.

In office, Biden has not let his age be a barrier to realising the responsibilities of commander-in-chief, undertaking exhausting tours to Poland and Ukraine and Ireland already this year.

It is certainly true, however, that he was the oldest man ever to ascend to the Oval Office when he was inaugurated on 21 January 2021 at the age of 78, with Trump, then 70, in second place and Ronald Reagan, 69, in third.

But Biden does not even crack the top ten list of the oldest world leaders currently serving...