Joe Biden Says He Didn't Want Obama to Put 'Thumb on the Scale' by Supporting His Presidential Run

During his first sit-down interview since announcing his presidential campaign, Joe Biden is opening up about his candidacy.

Biden, 76, joined panelists Meghan McCain, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Abby Huntsman and Sunny Hostin.

Asked by McCain what “took so long,” Biden replied, “Well you know, let me ask the audience, aren’t these campaigns awful long to begin with? It’s not ’til February the first vote cast. So I don’t think it’s too long … It’s a long road. So I think this is plenty of time.”

Before his appearance, McCain told fans she was “thrilled” to have Biden on the ABC daytime show. “It’s no secret of my love and friendship with Joe,” she tweeted.

Biden announced his campaign early Thursday morning with a video message.

“The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy…everything that has made America — America –is at stake,” the text alongside the video said. “That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States.”

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The longtime Delaware senator served as former President Barack Obama‘s right-hand man for two terms and enters a crowded field of Democratic candidates as the immediate frontrunner in name recognition and most polling, even if his age and historically more moderate voting record put him at odds with the party’s progressive wing.

Also on Thursday, Biden revealed he purposely urged Barack Obama to hold off on declaring his approval. “I asked President Obama not to endorse,” Biden told reporters on Thursday. “Whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits.”

Opening up on The View further about that decision, Biden shared, “Look, everybody knows — I think everybody knows, we didn’t only serve together, but our families are close. We became very close personal friends. I grew to respect him, he is just a man of great honor and discipline. … I didn’t want it to look like he was putting his thumb on the scale here. And that, you know, I’m gonna do this based on who I am, not by the president going out and trying to say, ‘This is the guy you should be with.’ “

Added Biden, “I’m incredibly proud to have served with him.”

In his 2017 memoir,

Promise Me, Dad,

Biden wrote that he was prevented from challenging former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination because his oldest son, Beau, died of brain cancer.

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This is not the first time Biden has made an appearance on The View.

Most memorably, in December 2017, the former vice president was a source of comfort for McCain during her father and late Arizona senator John McCain’s battle with glioblastoma, the same brain cancer that took the life of his late son, Beau, in 2015.

The lifelong Democrat detailed his close relationship with the maverick Republican, likening their relationship to “two brothers who were somehow raised by different fathers.”

Before his death, Biden visited McCain at the Republican’s Arizona ranch, where the friends on opposite sides of the aisle sat on McCain’s deck and spoke from the heart. “I wanted to let him know how much I love him and how much he matters to me and how much I admire his integrity and his courage,” Biden told The New York Times after the trip. “I wanted to see my friend.”

Biden also spoke at McCain’s funeral after he fiercely defended the late politician against Trump and the White House’s “trail of disrespect” following McCain’s death. “People have wondered when decency would hit rock bottom with this administration. It happened yesterday,” Biden said.

However, on Wednesday, Cindy McCain, refuted reports that she and her family would endorse Biden’s candidacy. “Joe Biden is a wonderful man and dear friend of the McCain Family. However, I have no intention of getting involved in presidential politics,” she tweeted.