The 2024 election will be the most important in American history, the ex-president says
Former US President Donald Trump has said America is in rapid decline, and re-electing him would give the country a last chance to turn things around.
“Our country’s going to hell. Our country’s going down,” Trump told journalist Megyn Kelly in an interview for the SiriusXM satellite radio station, aired on Thursday.
The US “has one last chance,” which makes the presidential vote in 2024 “the most important election we’ve ever had,” he claimed.
The former leader acknowledged that he said the same about his victorious presidential race of 2016, but insisted that the next year’s vote will be even more crucial.
“Our country is going bad, our country is being destroyed” under the Biden administration, he insisted, adding: “We’re a nation in serious decline, and I think I can turn it around very fast.”
With Trump currently indicted in four separate cases, Kelly asked how concerned he was about potentially ending up behind bars.
“I have a great attitude, it doesn’t affect me at all because I’m fighting for the country, I’m fighting for the people,” the Republican candidate replied.
The 77-year old said the “good” polling numbers make him confident he is “going to win the election no matter what happens” because the people know the charges are “fake.”
A survey, published by Quinnipiac University on Wednesday, suggested that 62% of Republican voters want Trump to be their party’s nominee in 2024. The poll also said Trump is currently trailing the incumbent President Joe Biden by just 1%.
Trump reiterated his earlier claim that he does not believe Biden will stand for re-election in 2024 due to the 80-year-old’s apparent poor health.
“I watched him yesterday, he couldn’t put two sentences [together], he can’t talk,” he said of Biden. “It’s not an age thing, it’s a competence thing.”
In August, a Wall Street Journal poll found that 73% of US voters think Biden is too old to seek a second term, while only 36% described him as mentally fit to fulfil his duties.
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However, Trump’s age, at just three years younger than Biden, is apparently also an issue for many Americans. A study by the NBC in June said that 55% of those surveyed had concerns about his physical and mental health.