Former US Vice President Joe Biden is remorseful about his decision not to run in last year’s presidential election, claiming that he could have easily defeated Donald Trump.
During a speech at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, Biden said he only needed to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination in order to win.
“I had planned on running for president and although it would have been a very difficult primary, I think I could have won,” he said. “I don't know, maybe not. But I thought I could have won.”
“I had a lot of data and I was fairly confident that if I were the Democratic Party's nominee, I had a better than even chance of being president,” Biden continued.
“But do I regret not being president? Yes,” he said. "I was the best qualified."
Biden, a favorite for the 2016 Democratic nomination, announced his decision to not run for the White House in October 2015, cementing former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s standing as the front-runner.
The popular vice president, who lost his son Beau to cancer in May 2015, said back then that he was not emotionally prepared to take on the battle and that it was too late for him to enter the race.
Trump proceeded to pull off a historic victory against Clinton last November.
Biden has famously criticized Trump for posing a “threat to our democratic process.”
He once said that the billionaire Republican “was born with a silver spoon in his mouth that he’s now choking on because his foot’s in his mouth along with the spoon.”
Biden made the headlines again last October, when he invited Trump to a high school-style fight.
"The press always asks me don’t I wish I were debating him," Biden said of Trump back then. "No, I wish we were in high school—I could take him behind the gym. That’s what I wish."