“Biden signals to aides that he would serve only a single term,” blared the headline in Politico, an inside-the-Beltway liberal news site.
“Former Vice President Joe Biden’s top advisers and prominent Democrats outside the Biden campaign have recently revived a long-running debate whether Biden should publicly pledge to serve only one term, with Biden himself signaling to aides that he would serve only a single term,” said the lead.
“While the option of making a public pledge remains available, Biden has for now settled on an alternative strategy: quietly indicate that he will almost certainly not run for a second term while declining to make a promise that he and his advisers fear could turn him into a lame duck and sap him of his political capital,” the outlet continues.
The story cited four people who speak regularly speak with Biden. “If Biden is elected,” one adviser to the campaign told the news outlet, “he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.”
“He’s going into this thinking, ‘I want to find a running mate I can turn things over to after four years, but if that’s not possible or doesn’t happen then I’ll run for reelection.’ But he’s not going to publicly make a one-term pledge,” another adviser reportedly said.
Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager and communications director, declined Politico’s request for comment, The Hill reported.
But later, after the story had exploded across the internet, she took to Twitter to deny the report.
“Lots of chatter out there on this so just want to be crystal clear: this is not a conversation our campaign is having and not something VP Biden is thinking about,” Biden’s deputy campaign manager and communications director, Bedingfield wrote.
Lots of chatter out there on this so just want to be crystal clear: this is not a conversation our campaign is having and not something VP Biden is thinking about. https://t.co/mXNEnX6GrU— Kate Bedingfield (@KBeds) December 11, 2019
So, which is it?
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