Hillary Clinton Eyes Vice President Joe Biden As Her Secretary of State: Report

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has placed Vice President Joe Biden at the top of the short list for the position of secretary of state should she win the presidency, according to Politico.

This is the first major Cabinet candidate to go public in the Clinton campaign after the former secretary of state remained firm on her stance that she’ll focus solely on winning the election.

Politico reports that neither Clinton nor her aides have informed Biden.

“He’d be great, and they are spending a lot of time figuring out the best way to try to persuade him to do it if she wins,” a source told Politico.

In October 2015, the vice president made a joke about being “demoted to secretary of state or something” after speaking to a group of labor leaders at the White House, according to The Washington Post.

“We need your muscle, we need to move,” Biden told the group. Then, he talked about leaving the podium so the labor activists could get to see the next speaker: President Barack Obama.

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“If I don’t move, I’ll be demoted to secretary of state or something,” he said, as a slow wave of laughter rose from the surprised crowd. “That’s a joke! That’s a joke. That’s a joke.”

Biden has spent a little over 40 years in politics, beginning with six terms in the Senate and then two terms as the president’s adviser, dealing with difficult international issues in Iraq and the Ukraine.

In August, the 73-year-old traveled to Latvia to assure NATO allies of the United States’ commitment to the group, despite Donald Trump‘s aggressive stance against the pact.

PEOPLE reached out to the Clinton campaign and Biden’s staff but they could not be reached for comment.