President Joe Biden joked about his post-presidency plans during a White House reception honoring National Hispanic Heritage Month on Wednesday.
Observed from September 15 to October 15, National Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the rich heritage and contributions of Hispanic people to the United States.
Biden hosted the reception in the White House East Room at 5 p.m. Wednesday, accompanied by actress Jessica Alba. Alba opened the reception by speaking about her Mexican ancestors and heritage, and then applauded Biden’s tenure.
Biden then took the stand, welcoming the crowd and thanking Alba, saying, “She’s an actor, producer, advocate, author, and she knows how to build companies.”
Alba is co-founder of The Honest Company, which was valued at $1.4 billion when it went public in 2021. She stepped down from her role in April after 12 years.
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The president then leaned in closer to the microphone saying, “Jessica, if I’m really good, maybe you can get me a job!” The audience applauded and laughed. On July 21, Biden announced that he was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Since then, Harris has been running for the Oval Office.
Newsweek reached out to Biden’s press team for comment about Biden’s post-presidency plans via email on Wednesday.
Earlier today, Harris spoke at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s Annual Leadership Conference in Washington D.C.
A YouGov/The Economist poll released on August 28 found Harris has improved her lead among Hispanic voters over former President Donald Trump. The poll found that 56 percent of Hispanic registered voters prefer Harris, while 34 percent prefer Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. The remaining 10 percent consists of 4 percent undecided voters, 4 percent who said they would not vote, and 2 percent who said they would vote for another candidate.
The poll was conducted between August 25 and August 27, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percent.
Support from Latino and Hispanic voters is critical in the upcoming presidential election, especially in Southwestern swing states with large Latino populations like Arizona and Nevada. According to 2021 U.S. Census data there are 2.3 million Latinos in Arizona.
A poll released by Univision earlier in August found that the Democratic nominee had a 25-point lead over Trump among Latino voters in Arizona, a state Biden won by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2020.
The upcoming election is extremely close, with most state aggregate polls showing Trump and Harris in a complete deadlock in Arizona.
FiveThirtyEight’s Arizona state poll aggregator puts Harris and Trump at an exact tie, with each garnering 47.1 percent of the vote, while The Hill shows both at 47.2 percent, and The New York Times’ aggregate state poll puts both Trump and Harris at 48 percent.
