WASHINGTON, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden formally announced his candidacy for the 2020 presidential elections in an online video on Thursday morning.
"The core values of this nation, our standing in the world, our very democracy, everything that has made America America is at stake," Biden said in the video posted on Facebook and Twitter.
"That's why today I'm announcing my candidacy for president of the United States," he said.
In the statement, Biden also slammed the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 and President Donald Trump's handling of the incident.
He said history will look back on Trump's presidency as "an aberrant moment in time."
"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," he noted.
Biden is expected to attend his first high-dollar fundraiser held at the Philadelphia home of Comcast executive David Cohen on Thursday evening, and to show up at a local union hall in Pittsburgh on Monday.
