Former Vice President Joe Biden said Monday he will decide in the next two months whether to run for president in 2020.

"I'll be as straight with you as I can: I think I'm the most qualified person in the country to be president," Biden said in Missoula, Montana, according to accounts from CNN and local media. "The issues that we face as a country today are the issues that have been in my wheelhouse, that I've worked on my whole life."

Biden will confer with his family before making a decision, he said. He was promoting his book, "Promise Me, Dad," at the University of Montana when he made the statement. Biden had previously said he regrets not running for president in 2016.

“I’ve been doing this my whole adult life, and the issues that are the most consequential relating to the plight of the middle class and our foreign policy are things that I have ― even my critics would acknowledge, I may not be right but I know a great deal about it,” he said at the book tour stop.

The event's moderator, author and TV personality Bruce Feiler, pointed out some obstacles Biden might face if he runs, including Biden's controversial treatment of Anita Hill when he was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Biden said he's not afraid of facing the fact he's a "gaffe machine."

”I’m ready to litigate all those things," Biden, who would be 78 when he takes office, is quoted saying. "The question is: What kind of nation are we becoming? What are we going to do? Who are we? Whether or not I run, whoever runs, I’m going to break my neck to make sure they win. We can’t have four more years.”

The former vice president holds a wide lead over the other potential candidates to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020, a CNN survey recently found.

President Donald Trump has said he would have no problem beating Biden in the election, claiming that Barack Obama “took him out of the garbage heap” to make him his running mate in 2008.

"I'd love to have it be Biden," Trump said in July. "I dream about Biden."

Biden, for his part, has compared Trump to "the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room" and said he would have taken Trump "behind the gym" were the two in high school.

Follow Jessica Bies on Twitter: @jessicajbies

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