During an interview with CNN on Friday, Joe Biden revealed that his campaign has been collecting dirt on his 2020 Democratic rivals, though he suggested he has no intention of using it. “It’s so easy to go back, and go back 30, 40, 50 years… and take a context and take it completely out of context. And, I mean, you know, I get all this information about other people’s pasts, and what they’ve done and not done. And you know, I’m just not going to go there. If we keep doing that, that’s—I mean—we should be debating what we do from here.”

Joe Biden’s promise not to use the opposition research he has is about as believable as his claim that he requested that Barack Obama not endorse him in the primary. You don’t make such a blunt threat if you don’t intend to follow through with it under the appropriate circumstances. Given his recent decline in the polls following his poor debate performance and getting pummeled by Kamala Harris over his cozying up with Democratic segregationists, it’s clear that if Biden sees his last shot at the presidency threatened, then whatever he has on his rivals will get leaked. We go through this process every election, where candidates decry attack ads, promise not to resort to attack ads, and then run attack ads.

Joe Biden wants to come out from Barack Obama’s shadow. Do you really think that presidency isn’t important enough to his legacy that he won’t leak opposition research to maintain his lead in the polls, or to get it back should he lose frontrunner status? Dream on, Joe.

A Quinnipiac poll released earlier this week shows Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in a virtual tie for the Democratic nomination. If Biden’s decline continues, you can bet that we’re gonna see a lot of negative things about Kamala Harris leaked to the media.

So grab the popcorn. The clown show is about to get a lot more interesting.

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Matt Margolis is the author of the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. His new book, Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy, will be published on July 30, 2019. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis