In an apparent attempt to draw attention from his chief rival’s White House campaign launch, Joe Biden held an impromptu press conference Tuesday night just minutes before Donald Trump declared his 2024 candidacy in a speech at Mar-A-Lago.
Talking to reporters in Indonesia, Biden said that a missile that killed two in Poland was “unlikely” to have come from Russia.
“I don’t want to say that until we completely investigate, but it is — it’s unlikely, in the lines of the trajectory, that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see,” he said. “We’ll see.”
Biden downplays Trump 2024 run
Trump mentioned the missile minutes later in his 9 p.m. EST kickoff speech at Mar-A-Lago, where he pledged to put “America First” if elected and blasted Biden for potentially dragging America into “nuclear war” with Russia.
“Even just today, a missile was sent in, probably by Russia to Poland, 50 miles into Poland, and people are going absolutely wild and crazy and they’re not happy. They are very, very angry,” Trump said.
Biden was dismissive of Trump’s 2024 campaign announcement, saying, “no, not really” when asked if he had a response.
Despite Biden’s aloof posturing, his staff tweeted a prepared video during Trump’s speech attacking the former president:
Donald Trump failed America. pic.twitter.com/fylyocYcse
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 16, 2022
Pence, conservative media too
It wasn’t just Biden who sought to downplay Trump’s third run for the White House. Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took a veiled shot at Trump Wednesday morning, as did Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence, who told Fox News that Americans want a “new style of leadership.”
Both men will likely challenge Trump in the 2024 primary. Trump’s status as the GOP’s leader has come into question since the party underperformed in the midterm elections, with a consensus forming in conservative and liberal media that Trump is no longer politically viable.
Trump’s 2024 declaration was mockingly reported as “Florida man makes announcement” in the right-leaning New York Post.
But some longtime Trump critics, such as famed neoconservative Bill Kristol, admitted they were “alarmed” Trump is running again — while Democrat groups launched a campaign to block Trump from the ballot.