Biden cites Charlottesville and saving 'soul' of US in 2020 presidential bid
Election 2020,Joe Biden,Presidential Elections,Elections
In a video released Thursday morning, former vice president Joe Biden formally announced he's running for president in 2020 -- ending months-long speculation about his intentions.
Biden becomes the 20th Democrat to enter the 2020 race, and enters as a high-profile candidate, with decades of experience.
He will hold his first event as a candidate at a union hall in Pittsburgh on Monday.
Following his formal announcement, Biden's first television interview will take place on ABC's "The View" on Friday.
Biden opened his announcement video quoting from the Declaration of Independence.
"We haven't always lived up to these ideals. [Thomas] Jefferson himself didn't. But we've never before walked away from them," Biden says in the video.
Biden contrasts Jefferson's hometown, Charlottesville, with the deadly clash between white nationalists and counterprotesters that occurred there in August 2017. He quotes President Donald Trump in the video, referring to the president's "very fine people on both sides" quote in the wake of the death of Heather Heyer.
In Biden's first fundraising email, sent just after the announcement, he writes, "If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. I cannot stand by and watch that happen."
