Monday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” NBC News’ Lead Capitol Hill correspondent Kelly O’Donnell reported and played audio from her iPhone of an impromptu interview in which Vice President Joe Biden said he is considering a run for president in 2020.
O’Donnell said, “The vice president was here presiding over the Senate while a bill that has now been named in the honor of his son, Beau, who died of cancer—a cancer-related treatment bill. So he was here and it was sort of an emotional setting. He came off the Senate floor, a small group of us were talking to him, asking him about what did this mean and so forth. I said, you know, these are the final days of your time in office, did that add to the emotion? And he began talking about what it means for him in the Senate. And he said, ‘I’m going to run again,’ and we actually laughed, assuming he was teasing, thinking that his career in public life had come to an end. I’ll read exactly what he said.”
“He said, ‘I love this place,'” she continued. “There was a question, are you going to run again? He said, ‘Yeah, I am going to run, in 2020.’ For what, the question. He said, ‘For president. What the hell, man.’ And I said, Mr. Vice President, we’re going to run with that if you drop something with that. ‘Okay, go ahead.’ Circled back around again. Mr. Vice President, were you kidding? His answer was this —first of all, he paused for four long seconds as he thought about what he was going to say. He said, ‘I’m not committing to not running. I’m not committing to anything. I learned a long time ago that fate has a strange way of intervening.’ ”
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