Former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday said he could not “think of any reason” why he would not run for president.
After Biden addressed the International Association of Fire Fighters’ annual conference in Washington, D.C., MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell asked him, “Why wouldn’t you run Mr. Vice President?”
Biden responded: “I can’t think of any reason.”
Biden then added that he is “making that decision now” and will have “an announcement soon.”
The former vice president, who is reportedly “95 percent committed to running for president,” had just told the conference that he may need their energy “in a few weeks.”
“I appreciate the energy you all showed when I got up here,” Biden reportedly said. “Save it a little longer, I may need it in a few weeks. Be careful what you wish for.”
Though top Democrats like Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) have said that Biden is all but certain to run, Biden is still reportedly “uneasy” about the inevitable attacks on his son Hunter’s shady business dealings, which Breitbart News Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer extensively documented in Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends.
In Secret Empires, Schweizer described what he called the “new corruption” and revealed that in 2013, “Hunter Biden’s firm signed a billion-dollar deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China just 10 days after Joe and Hunter Biden flew to China aboard Air Force Two.”
The former vice president has led the most recent national and state polls and would enter the race as the frontrunner if he announces his candidacy. Biden led the Des Moines Register/CNN Iowa poll that was released last weekend as well as a Monmouth University national poll released this week. Biden placed first in both polls while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was second in both polls.