Joe Biden has officially entered the 2020 presidential race.
The former vice president, 76, who has long hinted at making another run at the White House, formally announced his bid in a video posted on social media early Thursday morning, immediately establishing himself at the front-runner in an ever-growing Democratic field that has reached 20 candidates.
Biden, who’s ran for president twice in the past and served two terms under President Barack Obama, is also the second-choice candidate for supporters of several other Democratic contenders such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and California Sen. Kamala Harris.
While Biden chose not to talk in the video about policy issues or his personal life, he recalled the 2017 deadly clash between white supremacists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., blasting President Trump’s assertion that there were “very fine people on both sides.”
“In that moment, I knew the threat to our nation was unlike any I’d ever seen in my lifetime,” Biden said.
He added that with Trump at the helm, America is in a battle for its soul.
“I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time,” he said. “But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen.”
Biden will begin his campaign Monday in Pennsylvania.