Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Monday night that he believes President Joe Biden will stay in the race despite questions surrounding his health and mental capability following the debate.
Trump joined Fox News host Sean Hannity for a phone interview on Monday and was asked about Biden’s apparent mental decline. The former president told Hannity that Biden’s answers during the CNN debate on June 27 “didn’t make a lot of sense,” adding that some of his answers “were just words put together that had no meaning or sense.”
Despite Biden’s struggles during the debate, which resulted in calls for him to step aside from his re-election campaign, Trump said it’s likely that the president would stay in the race.
“It looks to me that he may very well stay in,” Trump said. “He’s got an ego, and he doesn’t want to quit. He doesn’t want to do that.”
“Jill would like to see him stay. She’s having a good time,” Trump added, referring to the first lady. “And I’m hearing that Hunter is calling the shots, so this isn’t necessarily a positive thing for our country.”
Trump’s comments came hours after Biden sent a letter to congressional Democrats, doubling down on his intentions to stay in the race, writing that “despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.”
“The voters of the Democratic Party have voted. They have chosen me to be the nominee of the party,” Biden added in the letter. “Do we now just say this process didn’t matter? That the voters don’t have a say?”
Later in his interview with Hannity, Trump predicted that if the president were to drop out of the race, Democrats would tap Vice President Kamala Harris to be their nominee.
“It would seem to me from a political standpoint, that’s who they’re going with,” Trump told the Fox News host. “They’re not even talking about alternatives, and it seems if [Biden] gets out for whatever reason … it will be her.”
Trump called Harris “an ineffective person,” adding, “She was in charge of the border; she’s never been there. She didn’t do a good job.”
Trump leads both Biden and Harris in polling on hypothetical 2024 matchups, and his lead against the president has grown in recent days, including in battleground states. Biden and Harris also face approval ratings below 40% as the election approaches. Biden’s 38.8% approval rating is lower than each of his past three predecessors’ ratings for this point of a presidential term, according to RealClearPolitics.