Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told NBC News’s Yamiche Alcindor on Wednesday that she will endorse President Biden if he runs for reelection in 2024.
“I would endorse our sitting president, yes, of course,” Clinton said after an appearance at the Aspen Ideas Conference.
“I mean, this is a silly question,” she told Alcindor in the clip aired on “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on Thursday. “Let’s go with the person most likely to win. Joe Biden beat in a huge landslide victory in the popular vote Donald Trump. I think that says a lot.”
Biden and White House aides have said the president intends to run in 2024, although Biden has not yet officially declared his candidacy. Vice President Harris on Wednesday clarified earlier comments she made to CNN saying Biden was definitively running to instead mirror Biden’s position.
But questions have swirled around whether Biden will ultimately mount a reelection bid, due to questions about his age and approval ratings.
Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history and would be 82 at the start of a second term. His approval ratings have sagged to roughly 40 percent in recent polls as inflation hit a 40-year high, setting up a potentially brutal midterm environment for Democrats.
During Clinton’s appearance on a panel at Aspen on Wednesday, which Alcindor also moderated, Clinton raised concerns about Trump’s continued false claims of election fraud in the 2020 election.
“We’ve got to recognize the very real threat that January 6th and the continuing advocacy of the ‘Big Lie’ poses to the legitimacy of our democracy, and whatever may come next with fake alternative electors or whatever other strategies they try to deploy,” she said.
Clinton, the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nominee, has seen new vindication in her warnings about electing Trump after three Trump-appointed justices voted on Friday to overrule Roe v. Wade, the decision that enshrined the right to an abortion. It has made some wonder if a third bid for the White House is possible for the former first lady, who lost a primary race to former President Obama in 2008.
She said electing more Democrats is the party’s best post-Roe strategy. “It is about elections,” Clinton said. “I mean, people act as though we should do everything except talk about electing people who will stand up against this kind of regressive pushback.”