Joe Biden Says He's Running Against Donald Trump in 2020

Joe Biden is running for president in 2020 -- well, maybe.

The vice president spoke with reporters on Monday following a Senate session on the proposed 21st Century Cures Act, which would increase funding for health research. An estimated $1.8 billion would be allocated to the Democrat's passion project, the Beau Biden Memorial Moonshot, which is working to find a cure for cancer.

Biden announced in 2015 that he would not be seeking the Democratic nomination following the death of his son -- for whom the cancer initiative is named.

He didn't rule out, however, the possibility of running in four years in the Monday interview.

"Yeah, I am," the 74-year-old told the press, as CNBC reports. "I am going to run in 2020." When reporters inquired as to exactly what position he would be running for, Biden replied with his trademark wry humor, "For president. And also, you know, so what the hell, man, anyway."

Given that Biden had responded with a smile, reporters assumed he was joking. Was he?

"I'm not committing not to run," Biden said, refusing to clarify if the comment was made in jest. "I'm not committed to anything. I learned a long time ago, fate has a strange way of intervening."

Although Biden was considered an early front-runner for the 2016 nomination, the vice president decided against a run for the White House. The politician, who had represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate for 36 years before moving to the vice presidency, had run unsuccessful campaigns for the presidency in 1988 and 2008. In the latter, he was beaten by his eventual running mate, President Barack Obama.

In an interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, last year, Biden signaled that he was not emotionally ready for the grueling nature of the campaign trail.

"I don't think any man or woman should run for president unless, number one, they know exactly why they would want to be president and two, they can look at folks out there and say I promise you have my whole heart, my whole soul, my energy, and my passion," Biden said. "And I'd be lying if I said that I knew I was there."

Later, the vice president added that it was simply too late.

"You know, I just don't think there's time," Biden said during a press conference held in the Rose Garden. "I don't think we can run the kind of campaign we have to run to be able to win."

He would later endorse former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the nomination.

Should Biden run for the presidency in 2020, he would be the oldest person to ever seek the office. Ronald Reagan was 69 years old when he took office in 1981, and 70-year-old Donald Trump, the president-elect, will surpass that when he is inaugurated in January. Were Biden sworn in four years from now, he would be 78.

Although the vice president is keeping a coy wait-and-see approach for now, others are already on the Biden bandwagon.

Jon Cooper, who was part of the Draft Biden effort to encourage the politician to run previously, has already started buying domain names ahead of the 2020 race, which include URLs like RunJoeRun2020.com, DraftBiden2020.com, and Biden2020.net.

When asked by The Wall Street Journal if he knows something America doesn't, Cooper -- who also served as the head of an anti-Trump super PAC during the 2016 race -- played dumb.

"I have no inside info whatsoever," Cooper said, adding that he's merely "an eternal optimist."