The US President and presumptive Democratic Party nominee admitted he’s an 'old guy' but insisted that 'this is my job to get this done'.
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US President Joe Biden has once again insisted he will continue his chequered re-election campaign for the upcoming presidential election in November despite increasing pressure to step down because of his age.
In a televised interview on Monday, the 81-year-old president said he is confident that “this is my job to get this done”.
“Look, I've been doing this a long time. The idea that I'm the old guy. I am, I am old, but I'm only three years old than [Donald] Trump.
“My mental acuity has been pretty damn good.”
The presumptive Democratic Party nominee said voters should judge him not on the campaign's recent events, but on the three-and-a-half years of his administration so far.
Asked by interviewer Lester Holt whether he felt "a sense of wanting to get back on the horse," Biden replied: “I’m on the horse. Where have you been?”
Biden’s insistence he will continue to campaign comes as a growing number of Democrats and high-profile party donors call for him to stand down from the party's presidential ticket.
The row over his candidacy was kicked off by a disastrous TV debate with Donald Trump, in which the president visibly and audibly struggled to counter his predecessor.
He has lately made a number of gaffes and verbal slip-ups, most recently when he incorrectly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Russian President Vladimir Putin at a NATO summit in Washington, DC.
The White House and the Biden campaign have failed to end the discussion of his capacity to win the election and serve another term, which dominated the US news cycle until Trump was injured in an assassination attempt on Saturday.
Biden said in the NBC interview that he spoke privately to Trump after the assassination attempt, describing the phonecall with his rival as “very cordial.”
Meanwhile, Trump was formally nominated as the Republican candidate on the first day of the Republican National Convention on Monday, appearing with a bandaged right ear. Ohio senator JD Vance, a former critic turned loyal Trumpist, was nominated as his official running mate.