As Biden eyes 2024, one person weighs heavily: Trump

But as the president weighs his options, according to those close to him, one person looms largest over his decision: the man he’s often tried to ignore, the one whose legacy he’s worked to erase, the one he’s simply called “the former guy.”

Biden was motivated to run for office in large part because he saw himself as best positioned to defeat Donald Trump. He still considers knocking Trump out of the White House one of his major contributions to America’s welfare. And with Trump looming as the potential Republican nominee — he’s eyeing a September announcement — Biden maintains that he is still best positioned to beat him.

Biden may seek reelection in any case, people in his inner circle say, but if Trump runs, Biden is far more likely to do so. And if Trump holds off, it will be far easier for other Democrats to approach Biden about letting someone else take on a younger Republican nominee.

“I’m not predicting,” Biden recently told an Israeli TV interviewer, when asked about a Trump-Biden rematch. “But I would not be disappointed.”

When it comes to opposing Trump, “he does feel like he’s the best option,” said Ted Kaufman, a longtime Biden adviser and confidant. “But the primary thing is, how will he feel if he doesn’t do it and if Trump gets elected president? … ‘This would be very, very bad for the country, and did I do all I could to stop this from happening?’ ”

The dynamic creates an odd codependency between the two septuagenarians. For Trump, a rematch would give him an opportunity to underline his false claims that he was the real winner in 2020. For Biden, it would be a chance to put an exclamation point on his unseating of Trump and show that his win was no fluke.

But there is an underlying anxiety among some Democrats about Biden’s chances against Trump (whom he leads slightly in the polls) or another Republican. Biden is enduring an unusually rocky stretch of his presidency. His approval ratings are at an all-time low, and 64 percent of Democrats in a recent New York Times-Siena College poll said they wanted a different nominee in 2024.

The president’s supporters argue that he is the only person ever to defeat Trump and that he remains uniquely positioned to assemble a winning coalition of centrists and liberals, with strong support from the Black community.

“In terms of him matching up against Trump again, I say, bring it on,” said Minyon Moore, a longtime Democratic consultant with senior roles at the Democratic National Committee.

Everyone around Biden is operating as if he is running, with plans pointing toward April 2023 for a formal announcement. Close associates say his low poll numbers, and the ongoing discussion among Democrats of whether Biden is their best option, motivate rather than deflate him.

“He feels he has something to prove,” said one person close to Biden, speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment. “It just makes him more enraged.”

Kaufman added that Biden has an ability to ignore the prevailing political commentary. “I’ve known him for 50 years — he’s incredibly good at tuning out the political chatter in Washington,” Kaufman said. “He’s never been focused on what’s the buzz about.”

Other Biden allies, while conceding that his poll numbers are dismal, say the political landscape can shift in a flash.

“I keep telling people: Go back and read the newspapers from Ronald Reagan’s second year in office. People talked about ‘the Reagan recession,’ and you would have thought he would never win reelection,” said former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell (D). “Less than two years later, he got reelected and he won 49 states.”

Rendell said he sees few scenarios, absent an unexpected health problem, where Biden would not be on the 2024 ballot. “Joe Biden believes in himself,” he said. “He’s not going to give this thing up.”

Some Democrats, however, want a more vibrant discussion about whether Biden should be their nominee. They do not question his role as a historic figure who defeated Trump and say they recognize his accomplishments. But they view him as an ineffective messenger and wonder whether, at 79, he is the right fit for the urgency of the times.

Some also worry that if Biden dragged out his decision and then opted not to run, it would hamstring the party and prevent a more robust nomination process.

“I’ve been in the White House when people were hand-wringing and moaning and secretly meeting that maybe we should find someone else or that the president maybe wasn’t progressive enough. It sucks. It’s not fun. It drives you crazy,” said David Axelrod, a Democratic consultant who was President Barack Obama’s chief strategist.

“But you have to separate out the hand-wringing from the legitimate concerns — and there are legitimate concerns,” Axelrod added. “They shouldn’t be angry that people are thinking about that, because there’s a lot on the line.”

Over his half-century in public life, Biden has deliberated numerous times over mounting presidential runs — so often that he has developed a well-worn process of sorts. There are long discussions with family over Thanksgiving in Nantucket, Mass., and debates with a small team of advisers in his living room.

“On the outside it can be a circus, but he really is focused on the pros and cons and what the situation is when he sits down to talk about these things,” Kaufman said.

Biden has weighed running for president in almost every election since 1980, when he was first constitutionally old enough. That year, a group of consultants approached him to argue that President Jimmy Carter and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), vying bitterly for the nomination, would so damage each other that Biden could emerge as a compromise candidate.

Biden decided against it. Four years later, he signed filing papers to compete in New Hampshire’s primary and left them with his sister, Valerie, before departing for vacation. But on the flight to the Virgin Islands, he and Jill discussed the idea, and when the plane touched down, he called his sister and told her not to file the paperwork.

In 1988, Biden finally did launch a campaign — but just before announcing, he later wrote, he confessed to his wife that he didn’t want to do it. She urged him to go forward, given how many people’s lives he had put on hold by signaling his interest.

But he dropped out less than four months later amid allegations that he had plagiarized a speech from a British politician. Biden did not consider running in the next several campaigns, haunted by that experience and questioning why he had listened more to those around him than to his instincts.

When he finally did run again in 2008, he dropped out following a 1 percent finish in the Iowa caucuses and ended up as Obama’s running mate.

Then came 2016, when his tenure as vice president was wrapping up. A deeply conflicted Biden decided against seeking to replace Obama, as he was still mourning the death of his son Beau and as some in the White House made it clear they planned to back Hillary Clinton.

Biden has since suggested that he could have prevented Trump from entering the White House in the first place. “I regret it every day,” he said later about the 2016 decision.

Four years later — the year he ultimately won the White House — the decision process was no faster, in part because of concerns about his son Hunter. As has become clearer since, Hunter Biden was at one of the lowest points of his addiction. He had fled the family and moved to Los Angeles, where he fell into a drug-induced spiral that at one point required his uncle, James Biden, to come and make sure he got to rehab.

James Biden, family helper

During the 2020 campaign, Hunter Biden was often a focus of attacks. The appetite among Republicans to go after him has only grown, with many pledging to launch investigations into Biden’s surviving son if the GOP takes control of Congress in the midterm elections.

But several people close to Biden said that this time, concern over scrutiny of his family is unlikely to weigh heavily on his decision. Hunter Biden is said to be doing better and has been making public appearances at the White House.

When Biden began his 2020 presidential campaign, some floated the idea that he pledge to serve…