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Joe Biden 2016, Stephen Colbert presidential run talk - POLITICO

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/joe-biden-stephen-colbert-213528

Biden to Colbert: 'I’d be lying if I said that I knew I was there'
[image: 20150910_joe_biden_podium_ap_1160.jpg]

AP Photo

In an emotional interview, the vice president says he's still deliberating
whether to run for president.

By Edward-Isaac Dovere <http://www.politico.com/staff/edward-isaac-dovere>

09/10/15, 07:10 PM EDT

NEW YORK—Stephen Colbert all but begged Joe Biden to run for president,
telling him in an appearance on the CBS Late Show on Thursday night he’ll
be “sorely missed” if he doesn’t.

“I think we’d all be very happy if you did,” Colbert said, finishing an
emotional interview that dwelled at length on the death of the vice
president's son Beau Biden who died in May, his faith, and the emotional
turmoil of working through that grief.

When Colbert pressed Biden if he had an announcement to make, Biden said,
“Yes.” The crowd in the Ed Sullivan Theater held its breath.

“I think you should run for president and I’ll be your vice president,”
Biden said.

Biden then got serious, recalling being on a military base and having one
of the troops call out to him that he’d served with Beau Biden in Iraq. “I
just lost it,” Biden said.

He said that is where his mind is now about the process of deciding whether
to run. Biden said he didn’t think anyone should run for president unless
they could give “110 percent” of their heart, soul, energy and passion.

“I’d be lying if I said that I knew I was there,” Biden said.

He did, though, say he felt obliged to see a way forward. He said he’d be
letting his parents down, and he’d be letting his son down, “if I didn’t
just get up.”

The crowd embraced him, including in a moment at the beginning of the
segment when his microphone went out and had to be replaced. (Colbert
danced for the audience while staff replaced the equipment and Biden joked,
“they do this to me all the time in the White House—shut my microphone
off.”)

By the time they were back from the one commercial break, the audience was
chanting, “Joe! Joe! Joe!”

“Be careful what you wish for,” he said.

Biden and Colbert joked about the job of the vice presidency—when Colbert
said he wanted to give the office the respect it deserves, Biden held up
his thumb and index finger close together and said, “this much.”

He reminded Colbert that he’d first said no to then-Sen. Barack Obama when
asked to be his running mate, saying that he didn’t see the office as
having much of a point. What’s been different, though, Biden said, is
because of his relationship with Obama, whom he defended at length for his
handling of more than “any modern president” has had to deal with.

Colbert didn’t look like the only Biden fan on stage. As the vice president
spoke about his closeness with Obama, bandleader Jon Batiste was nodding
along.

Even this far into their second terms, Biden said, he and Obama share an
optimism about the future. Biden’s been talking about that throughout his
stops around the country as part of his pre-campaign.

He said that wasn’t in itself enough to convince him to run.

“I’m positive about where we’re going, but sometimes it just overwhelms
you,” Biden said

“It’s going to be emotional for a lot of people if you don’t run,” Colbert
said.
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Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

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