"He still grabs me by the lapel every time I walk out [on the debate stage]," Joe Biden said

Joe Biden Gets Emotional Describing How Late Son Beau Who Died of Brain Cancer 'Walks with' Him on Campaign Trail

Joe Biden shared the emotional way his late son Beau stays with him on his quest to become president.

“He walks with me. I know that sounds to some people kind of silly, but he really, honest-to-God does. I know he’s in me, I know he’s part of me,” Biden, 77, told MSNBC’s Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough on Wednesday morning, adding that his late son, who died of brain cancer in 2015, “should be the one running for president, not me.”

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The former vice president continued to say the loss of Beau, who was the former Delaware attorney general, has connected him to people he’s met on the campaign trail who have also experienced tragedy in their lives.

“You’d be amazed at the number of people who come up to me in a rope line. I mean hundreds of people over time. And they’ll throw their arms around me, men and women saying, ‘I just lost my son, I just lost my father, I just lost my wife.’ And all they want to know is that you can make it,” he said.

Image zoom Joe Biden, Beau Biden

Image zoom Beau Biden, Joe Biden

“And the way you make it is you find purpose and you realize they’re inside you, they’re part of you, it’s impossible to separate and that’s the really good thing,” he continued.

Biden said his eldest son helped keep him focused when he ran as Barack Obama’s vice president and that his memory keeps him focused today.

Image zoom

“Every time we walked out on a presidential debate or vice presidential debate, he’d grab me and be the last guy talking to me with Hunter and he’d grab me and say, ‘Dad, look at me dad, look at me, remember dad, home base, home base, doesn’t matter, just be who you are, home base,'” Biden recalled.

“I swear to god, you saw those pictures I mean he’d grab me by the lapel. He still grabs me by the lapel every time I walk out.”

Image zoom Joe Biden Preston Ehrler/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty

“I’m sorry to get a little emotional,” the democratic presidential candidate said, wiping something away from the corner of his eye.

In 2017, Biden opened up to Oprah Winfrey about Beau’s last moments.

“[Beau] looked at me and he said, ‘Dad, I’m not afraid. I’m okay,’” Biden said. “It was at the very end. His brother [Hunter] was sitting there, the three of us were holding hands and [Beau] wanted to reassure us [that he was okay].”