Former vice president Joe Biden said on Friday that if he had run for president in the 2016 election, he would have been the “best qualified” candidate — and would have beaten Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination and gone on to defeat Donald Trump in November, becoming the 45th president of the United States.

“I had planned on running for president and although it would have been a very difficult primary, I think I could have won,” Biden told an audience at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, on Friday.

“I had a lot of data and I was fairly confident that if I were the Democratic Party’s nominee, I had a better than even chance of being president,” he told the audience.

Biden went on to say that he regrets “not being president,” because “I was the best qualified.”

Clinton, who served four years as Secretary of State and eight years as Senator from New York, the first woman ever to serve as U.S. senator from that state when she won election in 2000, was described as the most qualified presidential candidate in history during the 2016 campaign by President Barack Obama.

Joe Biden (r) served 36 years as a U.S. Senator before Barack Obama (l) sleeked him as his 2008 running mate. (Image by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

The 74-year-old Biden was first elected to the U.S. Senate, representing Delaware, when he was only 29-years-old, staging a stunning upset over Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs in 1972 — in a low-budget campaign that was managed by Biden’s own sister. Biden’s only political experience at the time was three years on the city council in New Castle, Delaware.

But Biden was able to hold the seat for six terms — 36 years — before then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama won the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and picked Biden as his running mate. Biden served as Obama’s vice president through all eight years of Obama’s two terms.

While Biden has a lengthy track record of service in Washington, his history as a presidential candidate is not as distinguished, despite his confidence that he would have put together a campaign that would have defeated both Clinton and Trump.

Watch his speech to the Colgate University audience by clicking on this link.

Biden first ran for president in 1988. But the then-Delaware senator never competed in a single primary. Instead he dropped out of the race in September of 1987 when he was revealed to have plagiarized statements made during his campaign from British politician Neil Kinnock.

As the plagiarism scandal unfolded, media investigations uncovered other previous incidents in which Biden had quoted from such politicians as Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, and also exaggerated claims about his own educational achievements, even inflating his law school grades and confessing that he had plagiarized a law review article he had authored as a law student.

Biden claims that had he bene the Democratic nominee, he would have defeated Donald Trump in the November election. (Image by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Stung by the experience, Biden waited another 20 years to make a second run for the presidency, joining the Democratic field in the 2008 campaign.

While Biden survived somewhat longer than in his previous effort, his campaign again sputtered and died early when his dismal showing of less than one percent in the Iowa caucus — the first competitive vote of the campaign — forced him to withdraw from the race.

Clinton — whom Biden now says he would have defeated in the 2016 Democratic primaries — also ran in 2008, competing in all Democratic primaries and losing the nomination to Obama in a close and hard-fought, often bitter campaign.

MORE HILLARY CLINTON COVERAGE FROM THE INQUISITR:

Hillary Clinton Emails Called ‘Moot,’ Blocked By Donald Trump Justice Department

Hillary Beat Trump? New Website Has Trump Fans Outraged, Says Clinton Now Prez

Hillary Clinton — The Movie: Upcoming Film Stars Addison Timlin As Young Hillary

2016 Popular Vote Results: Hillary Clinton Lead Tops 2.8 Million, Donald Trump’s Vote 7th-Lowest Of Any President-Elect

Who Won The Popular Vote In 2016? Hillary Clinton Vote Count Lead Now Greater Than 11 Elected Presidents

Trump: Hillary Clinton Gave 20 Percent Of U.S. Uranium To Russia — Lie Or Fact?

Can Hillary Clinton Still Win? 5 Long Shot Scenarios That Could Make Clinton President After All

Who Won The Popular Vote In 2016? Hillary Clinton Vote Count Lead Now Greater Than 11 Elected Presidents

Donald Trump Plans To ‘Napalm’ Hillary Clinton With Conspiracy Theories Of Murder And Infidelity

Obama then selected Biden as his running mate and after winning the 2008 presidential election, named Clinton to serve as Secretary of State.

Biden told the Colgate University audience on Friday that he had originally intended to run for president in 2016, but the death of his 46-year-old son, Beau Biden, from brain cancer left him too heartbroken to wage an effective campaign.

[Featured Image By Alex Wong/Getty Images]