Ron Klain warns Biden 2024 skeptics: Dems need ‘damn good answer’ to Trump

​Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain has said Democrats who oppose President Biden running for re-election in 2024 need a “damn good answer” to the question of who can beat former President Donald Trump.

Klain told the New Yorker in an interview ​published Tuesday he believes the 76-year-old Trump will secure the Republican nomination and pointed out that Biden​, 80,​ ​was able to accomplish what a string of other Republicans and one Democrat couldn’t.

​”​Donald Trump in 2016 beat every comer in the Republican Party, including Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and Scott Walker and Ted Cruz​ ​—​ ​he beat them all, and then beat Hillary Clinton. There’s only one person who’s ever beaten Donald Trump, and his name is Joe Biden​,” Klain said.

“And the people who have doubts about his candidacy better have a damn good answer for who is going to beat Donald Trump other than Joe Biden,” he added. “And that answer needs to be based on something other than past performance, because past performance produces only one answer to that question. That’s how I see it​.” 

Trump announced in November that he would mount a third White House run, but while Biden has said he intends to seek a second term, he has yet to make a formal announcement. ​  

So far, Trump only has one challenger.

Nikki Haley, who served as the ambassador to the United Nations in his administration, declared her 2024 candidacy Tuesday morning. 

But the Republican field could get crowded, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Vice President Mike Pence expected to announce their bids soon.  

Klain dismissed ​Biden’s age and his persistently low poll numbers, saying “with age comes a lot of experience and a lot of wisdom.” 

“​The ability to understand the big things that are going on in international affairs and in domestic affairs, to make the right judgments, to then assemble the coalition to take this war on, to balance the need to provision the Ukrainians and the need to not escalate this war to expand into other countries in Europe and to a more exacerbated conflict with Russia — that insight, that wisdom, and that experience are invaluable,” he told the publication.

“And so I just think his performance as president is the ultimate test of his ability to be president. People can judge that for themselves.”