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Joe Biden: 'I'm not closing the door' on a presidential run in 2020

Former Vice President Joe Biden is not ruling out a potential presidential run in the next election.
/ Source: TODAY

Former Vice President Joe Biden did not rule out the possibility of a potential presidential run against Donald Trump in 2020 during an interview on TODAY Monday.

"I honest to God haven't made up my mind about that,'' Biden told Savannah Guthrie and Matt Lauer. "I'm not closing the door. I've been around too long."

"I'm a great respecter of fate, but who knows what the situation is going to be in a year-and-a-half? I don't have any idea. I'm in good health now, I'm in good shape...but I just don't know. Honest to God, that's the truth."

Biden, 74, said his current focus is his new book, "Promise Me Dad," in which he writes about the heart-wrenching ordeal of watching his son, Beau, battle the brain cancer that ultimately claimed his life at 46 in 2015. He also writes about his decision not to seek the Democratic nomination for president in the 2016 election.

"I can tell you honestly, if the Lord Almighty came down and sat in the middle of the table and said, 'Joe, the nomination is yours but you have to take it now, I would say no,''' he said. "We're working through a whole lot, we're getting there, and I want to focus on my book."

Biden also responded to a recently-released memoir by former Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile. She wrote that she contemplated initiating the process to replace Hillary Clinton as the presidential nominee with Biden in the aftermath of a fainting episode by Clinton.

"I give you my word, the first time I or any of my staff heard about of anything about that was in the book,'' he said. "No. 2, I wouldn't have taken it. I was for Hillary. At that point I made a judgment well before that, that I was not prepared to run for president. I would never have done that."

Biden was asked if he could've beaten Trump in the election.

"Oh gosh, I don't know,'' he said. "The polling data at the time said yes, but I wasn't in the race, you've got to be in the race. It's a tough game."

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