“He’s known the cruel toll this disease can take, but he hasn’t let it defeat him,” McConnell said. “He’s chosen to fight back.”

Biden spoke to reporters afterward and reflected on the promise of the cancer moonshot — “If we start collaborating as much as we’re beginning to do now, we really — no malarkey — we can make significant progress even if we don’t have one additional breakthrough” — and on his still-raw grief.

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“I’ve got to get better, and I will, but it’s still — it takes time,” he said, recalling the 1972 deaths of his wife and infant daughter in a car crash. “Sometimes, the second year is harder than the first, and I’ve been through this once before.”

He also reflected on his life at the highest levels of politics, a life that he suggested could continue.

“Every time I come up here, I feel invigorated,” he said. “I love this place. I mean, this is, this is, where I spent my life.”

“Are you going to run again?” CNN producer Ted Barrett asked.

“Yeah, I am,” Biden, 74, replied. “I’m going to run in 2020.”

“For what?” Associated Press reporter Alan Fram asked.

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“For president,” he said, deadpan. “What the hell, man.”

NBC News reporter Kelly O’Donnell warned him: “We’re gonna run with that sir, you know.”

“That’s okay,” he said, deadpan again.

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Later, Fram followed up with Biden: “Just to be clear, were you kidding about running for president in 2020?”

Biden paused and laid his hand on a Washington Post reporter’s shoulder.

“I’m not committing not to run,” he said. “I’m not committing to anything. I learned a long time ago fate has a strange way of intervening. Anyway, nice to see you guys.”

Biden then left the Capitol.