Hillary Clinton has quashed speculation that she would run for president in 2024.
Earlier this year, the declining popularity of President Joe Biden prompted a bout of name-dropping by Democratic Party figures to the effect that Clinton might emerge to give the party some hope of winning in 2024.
“No, out of the question,” she said when asked about a 2024 campaign. “First of all, I expect Biden to run. He certainly intends to run. It would be very disruptive to challenge that.”
Clinton was interviewed by the Financial Times.
Biden, who has never offered a definitive statement about his 2024 plans, is currently 79. Writer Mark Leibovich said in The Atlantic that when 2024 rolls around and Biden is 81, he will be “too old.”
Clinton said her priority is to ensure a Republican does not become president, according to the Washington Examiner.
“We are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window,” Clinton said.
“Look, the most important thing is to win the next election,” she said. “The alternative is so frightening that whatever does not help you win should not be a priority.”
Clinton commented on former President Donald Trump, who defeated Clinton in 2016, according to the Financial Times.
“I think if he can, he’s going to run again,” Clinton said. “Follow the money with Trump — he’s raised about $130 million sitting in his bank account that he used to travel around, to fund organizing against elections.”
”I don’t know who will challenge him in the Republican primary,” she said.
In January, an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal indicated the reason for the boom in “Hillary 2024” speculation.
“A perfect storm in the Democratic Party is making a once-unfathomable scenario plausible: a political comeback for Hillary Clinton in 2024,” Doug Schoen and Andrew Stein wrote.
“Several circumstances — President Biden’s low approval rating, doubts over his capacity to run for re-election at 82, Vice President Kamala Harris’s unpopularity, and the absence of another strong Democrat to lead the ticket in 2024 — have created a leadership vacuum in the party, which Mrs. Clinton viably could fill,” they wrote.
Trump has not said if he will run in 2024, but has dropped hints that the subject is on his mind.
“We did it twice, and we’ll do it again,” he said last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, according to Newsweek, referring to the 2020 election as his second win. “We’re going to be doing it again a third time.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.