Report: Biden ‘telling people privately’ about a potential 2020 run against Trump

Former Vice President Joe Biden is said to be seriously contemplating another run for president in 2020.

Politico is reporting that he has been privately telling others that since no other viable candidate capable of defeating President Trump has emerged, “that might mean he’ll just have to run himself.”

“Biden in recent months has shifted unmistakably in favor of running, say multiple people who’ve been in touch with the former vice president and his team,” the piece further notes.

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However, publicly, he has expressed doubts.

“Yes, I think I’m qualified, but that doesn’t mean I should be president or that I will run for president,” he told a crowd in Salt Lake City on Monday. “The honest to God answer is that I don’t know.”

Biden has admitted to regretting not running in 2016 multiple times.

In a clip of an interview to air Sunday on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, he tells Oprah Winfrey, “I have a regret that I am not president because I think there’s so much opportunity. I think America is so incredibly well-positioned.”

“No woman or man should announce they’re running for president unless they can answer (in part)…do they truly believe they’re the most qualified person for that moment?” Biden adds. “I believed I was — but was I prepared to be able to give my whole heart, my whole soul, and all my intention to the endeavor? And I knew I wasn’t.”

Biden was still grieving the loss of his son Beau who had succumbed to brain cancer in May 2015.

“I had planned on running for president and although it would have been a very difficult primary, I think I could have won—I don’t know, maybe not—but I thought I could have won,” Biden told an audience at Colgate University in March. “I had a lot of data and I was fairly confident that if I were the Democratic party’s nominee, I had a better than even chance of being president.”

That comment appears to be backed by a Public Policy Polling survey from July which found that, in a head-to-head match-up for president, Biden would beat Trump 54 percent to 39 percent.

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Despite the former Vice President’s popularity, especially among Democrats, Politico points out that potential drawbacks to his candidacy could be his advanced age, previous failed attempts at running for president, and intense competition from within his own party.

Biden will have an opportunity to publicly clarify his position on running in 2020, as CNN says he has a “media blitz” planned for the coming weeks to promote his new book ‘Promise Me, Dad.’