Vice President Joe Biden’s motivation behind entering the presidential race is more about personal competitiveness than meeting a promise made to his dying son, managing editor of Bloomberg Politics Mark Halperin said.
“He’s so competitive. He thinks he’d be a better president than Hillary Clinton and that’s what’s fueling a lot of this,” Halperin said Wednesday on TODAY.
But for right now, Halperin said, Biden continues to explore his options because "he just likes to talk."
A new campaign by supporters encouraging Biden to enter the Democratic race for president has fueled speculation over whether he will make another White House bid. In addition, Biden aides have downplayed a Politico story that says the vice president himself leaked to the New York Times the deathbed plea from his son, Beau, about making another run for president.
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Halperin said Biden’s advisers may be suggesting a wait-and-see approach for the vice president that could see him waiting to decide until after he sees how Hillary Clinton fares against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in next year's early primaries and caucuses.
“If she loses to Bernie Sanders in Iowa or New Hampshire or both, I guarantee you, look at the history of the Democratic party, they’ll be panic,” he said. “And Joe Biden, I think, believes maybe that’s the right time. See what things look like. If she loses, maybe people say, ‘Hey we need somebody else in this race.’ But when he thinks about the possibility of getting in, he thinks about winning, not about some message, not about fulfilling some family obligation. He wants to be president of the United States."