During one of three private campaign receptions in New York City on Wednesday, President Joe Biden took a moment to warn a crowd of a major threat facing America: Donald Trump.
Earlier in his speech, Biden told the crowd that the biggest existential threat to the world is the environment.
“There is only one existential threat we face in the world. That’s the environment. I mean it literally is the existential threat,” he said. “It’s even more consequential than nuclear power ― nuclear war. That would be horrible ... and make the environment incredibly worse.”
Later at the same event, Biden pivoted to labeling Trump as the existential threat, echoing criticisms he has made about the former president throughout his campaign.
“There is one existential threat. It’s Donald Trump. It’s not about me, it’s about Trump,” Biden said of his Republican presidential rival. “He will try to undo everything we’ve done. Make no mistake. ... He will try.”
Biden previously warned that a Trump win in the 2024 election would be a threat to democracy, and Trump fired back by saying that Biden was the real “destroyer of American democracy.”
As primary election results roll in, it’s likely that the 2024 presidential race will be a repeat of the 2020 showdown between Biden and Trump. Trump had a narrow lead of 47% in a 2024 hypothetical election poll conducted by NBC News, compared with 42% for Biden. Meanwhile, a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed that Biden had a 50-44 lead over Trump.