President Biden insisted in an interview published Wednesday that he could have beaten President-elect Trump in the 2024 election. In a sit down with USA Today, Biden claimed that polls suggested he could have won a second term if he had not dropped out of the race amid concerns about his age following a shaky summer debate with Trump. “It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes, based on the polling,” Biden told journalist Susan Page in an Oval Office interview conducted last weekend. Biden admitted he couldn’t be sure he would have had been fit to serve effectively for another four years if he had won reelection. “I don’t know. Who the hell knows? So far, so good,” Biden said. “But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?” Biden ended his campaign in July and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take the Democratic baton. His historic move came amid a growing chorus from allies and critics alike demanding for him to step down following the shaky debate that put a renewed focus on his age and fitness to serve. Public polls at the time showed Biden badly trailing Trump. Harris enjoyed a bounce in public support after she launched her campaign but eventually lost both the electoral college and popular vote to Trump. Some Democrats believe Biden should have put the kibosh on a run for a second term much earlier in his presidency, perhaps after the 2022 midterm elections, to clear the way for a contested presidential primary battle. But the president insisted that he acted in the best interests of the party, starting with his decision to come out of retirement to successfully oust Trump from the White House in 2020. “When Trump was running … for reelection, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him,” the president said. “But I also wasn’t looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old. And so I did talk about passing the baton.” Biden also claimed that Trump praised his record behind closed doors during the two rivals’ cordial White House meeting in November, a very stark contrast to the derisive attacks the president-elect has launched in public. “He was very complimentary about some of the economic things I had done,” Biden said. “And he talked about … he thought I was leaving with a good record.”