Joe Biden: Political “vitriol” makes me glad I decided against 2016 bid
Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that some of the “vitriol” in the political arena makes him glad he decided last year not to mount a 2016 presidential bid - and he also weighed in on what the future may hold for him.
In an interview that will air Sunday, Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson asked Biden, “You’ve been asked a thousand times if you regret…deciding not to run. Was there ever a moment in the last year where you said, ‘Boy, I’m glad I didn’t run?’”
“I guess yes,” Biden replied, mentioning “the vitriol that exists today” and “some of the stuff that the other team’s doing.”
The vice president seemed to reach for the right way to explain himself. “I just am glad my grandkids…I mean, how do you respond to a guy onstage when he…let me put it another way,” he said. “A woman who runs my office has a daughter that’s in, I think, sixth grade. I called her on Columbus Day, which is a holiday, to check my schedule the next day. And I said, ‘Did you watch the debate?’ And her comment was, ‘My daughter had a girlfriend over from class. They were supposed to watch the debate. The first few minutes I had to turn it off. I didn’t want my daughter seeing this debate.’”
“I think I made the right decision for my family and for me,” Biden added. “And I think Hillary’s going to be a hell of a good president.”
Reflecting on his time as vice president, and the persistent political divisions he’s witnessed in more than four decades in Washington, Biden said, “I tried my best to lead us beyond [our differences.] And I think for a significant period of our time, we did.”
“Young people out there, they said, ‘Well why would I get involved now with the dysfunction in government?’” Biden continued. “We were more divided substantively when [I ran for Senate in 1972.] The Vietnam War, the Women’s Movement, the Civil Rights Movement was still not finished. The whole environmental movement. I mean, it divided families…it divided friends, those things. People didn’t speak to one another over them. And yet, my generation did, we did get involved, we did make a difference, we did change things in the ‘70s, in the ‘80s…I’m not making myself out to be the hero, but I don’t think you’ll find anybody in public life I dealt with that I’ve ever not tried to bridge the differences with, not be honest with.”
On what he plans to do when he leaves the vice president’s office, Biden said he’s not sure. He said he and President Obama are “still gonna hang out a little bit,” and he said they “may have longer lunches” than they currently share on a weekly basis.
“We talk a lot about what each of us are gonna do, what we might be able to do together,” Biden said. “The bottom line is both of us feel that there are the things that motivated us to get into politics are still the things that shape our lives and our interests, and make us happy. And so you’re going to see the president deeply involved in a lot of the things he’s continued to be involved. And I’m not going away…everything from this issue of violence against women, to income inequality, to the cancer moonshot, I’m gonna devote the rest of my life to this.”
But as a man who first won election to the Senate when he was 29 years old, Biden admitted, waking up without a job in public service may feel strange. “From the time I’ve actually been 26, every morning I’ve gotten up…you know, somebody hands me a card that has my schedule on it and I know what I’m about to do, I know what I want to work on,” Biden said. “So it’s going to be an adjustment.”
“On your last day of office, what are you going to do?” Dickerson asked.
“What I’m going to do is go home and begin to figure out what I do for the rest of my life,” Biden replied.
Shortly after the interview was taped, CBS News confirmed reports that Biden is on the short list of candidates to be secretary of state if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency.
For more of the interview with the Biden, tune in Sunday. Check your local listings for airtimes.