Joe Biden didn't run for president in 2016, but on Thursday—with a healthy dose of hindsight—he gave a glimpse into what a Biden campaign would have looked like. And in no uncertain terms, he laid out precisely why he thinks Hillary Clinton lost.
At an event at the University of Pennsylvania, CNN reports he indirectly chided Hilary Clinton for failing to focus on the middle class:
"What happened was that this was the first campaign that I can recall where my party did not talk about what it always stood for — and that was how to maintain a burgeoning middle class," said the former vice president.
"You didn't hear a single solitary sentence in the last campaign about that guy working on the assembly line making $60,000 bucks a year and a wife making $32,000 as a hostess in restaurant."
Biden continued: "And they are making $90,000 and they have two kids and they can't make it and they are scared, they are frightened."
While it's true Hillary Clinton didn't give that specific anecdote, she did lay out her plans for a middle class tax cut. Of course, by the end of the campaign, Donald Trump news dominated everything—the Clinton campaign message included.
But in the wake of the Billy Bush tape, a furious Joe Biden himself said he wished he could take Trump"behind the gym" instead of debating him on issues. So perhaps staying on message is a little easier said than done in the heat of a one-on-one contest with the tweeter in chief.
Earlier in the week, Joe Biden said he had "planned on running for president" before the tragic death of his son Beau from brain cancer, according to CNN.
"Although it would've been a difficult primary, I think I could've won," said Biden. "I don't regret not running in the sense that it was the right decision for my boy, for me, for my family at the time. But do I regret not being president? Yes."
Biden still might run in 2020.