US President Joe Biden said Tuesday he was unsure if he would be seeking reelection next year if Republican rival Donald Trump wasn’t also trying for a second term.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running. But we cannot let him win,” the 81-year-old Democrat told a campaign fundraiser in Weston, Massachusetts.

The US president also mentioned that major media outlets such as the Atlantic, Washington Post, and New York Times have echoed these worries, emphasising the risks associated with a second Trump term.

At a separate fundraiser in Boston, Biden criticised Trump’s aggressive campaign language, drawing parallels to historical rhetoric from the 1930s in Germany. He emphasised Trump’s brazenness in openly stating his intentions, saying, “He’s not hiding the ball anymore.”

Despite positioning himself as the defender of American democracy, Biden faces challenges as Trump maintains a narrow lead in certain opinion polls, despite legal hurdles including an election subversion trial.