Joe Biden Opens Up About Not Running for President in 2016 and Life After Politics

Vice President Joe Biden thinks “it’s time for [him] to move on.”

During a sit-down interview with Michael Smerconish on POTUS Politics on Friday, Biden dispelled rumors that he might remain in the White House as Hillary Clinton’s secretary of state by saying he’s “not looking to be in an administration.”

And after a life of public service that began in 1973 when he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware, Biden is ready to embark on the next chapter of his life as a private citizen.

“There are a lot of things I want to do for the Cancer Moonshot, other things I want to work on, and I’m not going away,” Biden explained. “I plan on being as deeply engaged as I am now in the capacity of a citizen that has more of a platform and the ability to convene people.”

Many have speculated about what might have happened if Biden had entered the race for the White House in 2016. Smerconish asked the vice president if he had any regrets about not running.

“The only reason I didn’t run had nothing to do — I thought I could beat Hillary, I thought I could beat anybody that ran. No one should run for president unless they think they could do that,” said Biden, who ran for president in 1988 and again in 2008. “I didn’t run for one simple overarching reason: My son [Beau] was dying, and he died. That’s the total reason.”

He added, “I thought, though, at the time, I was. The issues the country was facing were right in my wheelhouse … I didn’t not run because Hillary was running. I didn’t run because my son’s not here. Period.”