WASHINGTON
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is weighing a potential run for the White House as the current Democratic front-runner finds herself immersed in controversy.
The American vice president has been weighing the move, and should he decide to go forward with it, will likely announce his candidacy in the first week of October, CNN reported, citing a Democratic source in touch with Biden’s aides.
A private meeting with populist Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren over the weekend sent the rumor mill into high gear, with some speculating that Biden could be courting Warren as a potential running mate, while others said the meeting could have been used to discuss each other’s potential candidacies -- although Warren has insisted that she won’t run.
And as the vice president inches closer to determining whether he will or will not run, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, once though a shoe in for the Democratic nomination, is facing mounting controversies over her time as America’s top diplomat.
Clinton continues to lead the list of Democratic candidates vying for their party’s nomination, but she is facing allegations of impropriety over her use of a private email server in violation of administration regulations while secretary of state. Roughly 60 emails on the server have reportedly been found to contain classified information, with most being marked "confidential" -- the lowest level of classification.
The FBI is investigating.
Clinton will also face a House committee Oct. 22 where she is likely to face sharp criticism from lawmakers, particularly Republicans, over the Sept. 11, 2012 fatal raid on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. The attack killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, during Clinton’s tenure as top diplomat.
Stopping short of an announcing an endorsement for the serving vice president, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday that President Barack Obama “has indicated his view that the decision that he made, I guess, seven years ago to add Joe Biden to the ticket as his running mate was the smartest decision that he had ever made in politics, and I think that should give you some sense of the president's view of Vice President Biden's aptitude for the top job.”
Asked if Obama views Biden as the “legitimate inheritor” of the Obama legacy, Earnest said, “There is so much that has been accomplished over the last six or seven years that President Obama is enormously proud of. And a large portion of it would not have been possible without the wisdom, counsel and leadership of Vice President Biden.”
Biden’s eldest son, Beau, reportedly urged his father to run for the presidency before dying of brain cancer in May.
One obstacle that Biden will have to overcome is timing. Clinton, who leads all other declared candidates by a wide, but shrinking, margin, has been in the thick of campaigning since spring.
And even Sen. Bernie Sanders, who once languished in the single-digits, is now polling at roughly 25 percent as he continues to take his populist campaign across the country.
Top Democratic fundraisers have been invited to Biden's residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory the week after Labor Day, celebrated on Sept. 7, according to the Washington Post.
Biden has run for the top spot twice previously, once in 1988 and again in 2008, but neither bid was successful.
