Former Vice President Joe Biden hinted Tuesday that he’d disclose whether or not he’s running for president in “a few weeks,” potentially wrapping up a long-awaited announcement.
“I appreciate the energy you showed when I got up here,” Biden told the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) in Washington, Bloomberg reports. “Save it a bit longer. I may need it in a few weeks.”
When this prompted chants of “Run, Biden, run” from the crowd, Biden teased: “Be careful what you wish for.”
Biden has a long history as a Delaware senator, with some decades-old votes running against his current views—like the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which some say was a large contributor to today’s mass incarceration. He’ll have to overcome this past—plus a slew of mostly younger, diverse Democratic candidates—if he wants to win the presidential primary.
Biden previously ran two unsuccessful presidential bids, one in 1988 and another in 2008. Speaking to the firefighters union Tuesday, Biden seemed to test-run a potential political platform by praising working-class citizens but stopped short of berating Wall Street like 2020 candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
“I look around this room and I see the people who built this nation,” he said, according to Bloomberg. “The country wasn’t built by Wall Street bankers and CEOs and hedge fund managers—they’re not necessarily bad—they didn’t build this country. It was built by a great American middle class and unions built the middle class.”