OPRAH: Do you feel you could
have beaten Hillary?
BIDEN: I -- yes. But it would
have been an incredibly
difficult race. And I have
nothing but friendship for Hillary.
OPRAH: Yeah. And did you not want
to take that on? Because when
everyone was getting excited about
you -- the possibility of you
joining the race, there was also,
obviously, a lot of speculation
that you wouldn't want to get in
and take on — BIDEN: Yes.
OPRAH: -- the Clinton factor.
BIDEN: Here's what the speculation
was. You're right about that.
The other speculation was Biden
wouldn't want to be the guy
denying a woman the opportunity.
OPRAH: Yeah. Yeah. BIDEN: It was
real simple. My son was dying.
I couldn't tell anybody.
The only person I could confide
in was Barack. He's the only
one who had to know.
So what I wasn't able to do,
Hillary, as I said, is a friend.
We -- when she was Secretary of
State, we had breakfast once a
week at my home. So she called
me and she wanted -- I'm sure
she doesn't mind my saying this
-- she called me and she wanted
to come out and talk about the
race. She wanted to know whether
I was going to run or not.
OPRAH: Whether you were going to
run or not. BIDEN: And I sat
down and I said, Hillary, look,
it's much less likely that I run
than not run. But if I do,
it will be straight up.
It's not about you.
It's about me. We had some hope
because I was told, that they
decided to try some experimental
procedures on dealing with
glioblastoma. They think
-- they injected him with a thing
called anti-PD 1 and they injected
a virus into his brain and there
was this one faint possibility.
OPRAH: So it gave you hope for
how long?
BIDEN: Well, we never gave up hope.
But it was a -- we -- we thought
in January -- I thought in January,
February there was a 25 percent
chance maybe we'd beat the odds.
But what I couldn't do, because
it would have -- he would have
killed me, if I announced I wasn't
running because of my son, because
he wanted me to run -
OPRAH: Yeah. When did he tell
you to run? Because that became
-- I thought you were gonna run
just because of Beau's wish that
you would run.
BIDEN: Every Thanksgiving for 42
years since I met Jill,
we would go to -- to Nantucket
for Thanksgiving when they were
little boys. OPRAH: Mm-hmm.
BIDEN: So we wouldn't offend her
parents, my parents, and/or my
deceased wife's parents.
So this was a nuclear holiday.
Now 16 of us trudge up every
-- and so we were in Nantucket
and we did the Christmas lighting.
Beau was sick. And he said, Dad,
we've got to talk. And we went
back to the house we were staying
in and sat down, and he said,
you don't understand, Dad.
We want you to run. This is Hunt
and Beau. And Hunt argued this
will keep the family together.
It will give us purpose.
But I just didn't have the
courage to do it.
I just didn't think I could say
to the public that, you know,
this is -- I'm not gonna divert
when my little grandson says,
Pop, you smell like Daddy.
Can I lie down with you?
You know. By the way, a lot of
people have that. But as I'm
President, I can't -- I knew I
couldn't -- now, they didn't make
any demand. The whole family got
together. Even after Beau passed.
And said, you've got to run, Joe.
Jill wanted me to run, but it —
OPRAH: In the end, the decision
was no because, what, you didn't
have the eye of the tiger?
You didn't —
BIDEN: Because I didn't have the
eye of the tiger.
I knew that I was still so --
I knew I was missing him so that
I didn't think I could --
I didn't think I could do the
job that I would have to do.
But -- but that's not saying
do I regret not being President?
Yeah. I -- I do. But I made the
right decision for my family,
I believe, at that time.
And I thought that we had a
really incredibly qualified
candidate to be President.
So I didn't feel like I was
leaving the field and because
I left the field, that there
wasn't anybody who could,
you know, run the country.
I didn't feel that way.