Trump in 2016? Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday, January 12, that he thinks “it’s possible” that Donald Trump could become the next U.S. president.
“Yes, I think it’s possible,” the VP, 73, told Savannah Guthrie on the Today show during their live broadcast from the White House. “I hope that if that were to occur — I hope it doesn’t because I have fundamentally different views than he does — I’d hope that he gets a lot more serious about the issues, a lot more serious about gaining knowledge about how this nation functions and foreign policy and domestic policy. But look, that’s a long way off.”
Currently, Trump is leading the GOP field, which also includes candidates Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina and Rick Santorum. The Democratic field includes Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
While Biden considered Trump’s election a possibility, President Barack Obama had a different opinion.
“Talk to me if he wins,” the POTUS, 54, told Matt Lauer. “But I’m pretty confident that the overwhelming majority of Americans are looking for the kind of politics that does feed our hopes and not our fears, that does work together and doesn’t try to divide, that isn’t looking for simplistic solutions and scapegoating but looks for us buckling down and figuring out, ‘How do we make things work for the next generation?’”
Biden also elaborated on Obama’s remark about Trump’s radically different politics.
“I think he is divisive,” the former Delaware senator said. “I think he’d have to acknowledge that he’s very divisive. That’s not healthy. We always do best when we act as one America. We always do best when we appeal to our better angels, and we always do poorly when we appeal to our fears and our differences.”
Last October, after months of speculation, the vice president announced that he would not be running for president, which he also reiterated during the show.
“I’ve not dreamt of being president,” he shared. “Here’s what’s hard to let go. From the time I was 28 years old, I’ve held public office. Every morning I’ve gotten up, I’ve had some policy concern that was on my mind, and I was able to work on trying to change things. It’s hard to figure what replaces that, that sense of purpose, when you’re not in this office.”
