During a fundraising event in Boston on Tuesday, President Joe Biden let slip a revealing admission about the thought process that led him to abandon his promise to serve as a “bridge” to a new generation of Democratic leaders.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” the president said.

Did the president expect the room to erupt with gratitude over the immense sacrifice he has made? Was he anticipating thanks? The unstated premise, the subtext of Biden’s remark is that he alone among his Democratic colleagues can defeat Trump in a 2020 rematch, but there’s almost no available evidence today to support that theory.

There may never be a great time to boast about your prohibitive political appeal, but it’s especially inopportune when almost all the polls have indicated for months that Trump might be, in fact, the voters’ preference. Biden has the stink of failure about him, but he must have gone nose-blind to the odor. It’s unfortunate for the president that no one else shares his olfactory deficiencies.

But it’s possible that Biden was just mouthing a long-defunct rationale for his reelection bid. Upon the president’s return to the White House, he was forced to take the logic of his remark to its rational conclusion when a reporter asked if he would suspend his campaign if Trump dropped out of the running. “No, not now,” Biden replied.