As Barack Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden quickly became a huge name in the Democratic Party. Before, he was a relatively unknown senator who occasionally said weird things. Now, he’s practically liberal royalty and therefore, his opinion matters. Still, Democrats might not like what he just had to say.
On Thursday, Biden was speaking at a hedge-fund manager conference in Las Vegas, where he spoke about Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential run in 2016. According to Biden, there is just one reason why she lost: she wasn’t a “great candidate.” Who would have done better? Why, Biden himself, of course!
“I never thought she was a great candidate. I thought I was a great candidate,” he said. “No man or woman should announce for the presidency unless they genuinely believe that for that moment in the nation’s history they are the most qualified person to deal with the issues facing the country.”
There has been a lot of speculation about who will represent Democrats in 2020 and there have been some calls for Biden himself to run, and he evidently isn’t ruling it out. Right now, he said he is focusing on his family, but admitted, “I may very well do it.”
“Could I? Yes,” he said. “Would I? Probably no.” And while he didn’t think Hillary was a good candidate, he still said that he thought she would have made a great president. Still, Biden’s admission that she wasn’t a good candidate is surprising, considering how the entire party — including Barack Obama — lined up behind her as the last, best hope for the United States and dubbed her the most qualified candidate to ever run for president.
For her part, Hillary doesn’t seem willing to look at herself when examining her loss. She still insists that she lost because of former FBI Director James Comey’s decision to reopen the investigation into her private e-mail servers just days before the election and because of campaign leaks allegedly tied to Russia.