Beau Biden's Dying Wish Was for His Dad to Run for President, Report Says

Vice President Joe Biden’s late son Beau told his father to run for president before he died, according to a report.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, in her weekend column entitled “Joe Biden in 2016: What Would Beau Do?,” describes, in great detail, a conversation that Beau had with his father before dying, urging his father to run for president rather than letting the office fall to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Joseph “Beau” Biden III died of brain cancer at the end of May. Dowd’s source for the anecdote is not clear from the column.

Vice President Biden has been holding meetings at his Washington home to discuss the possibility of a run, according to Dowd.

Subscribe to TIME

Get our Politics Newsletter. The headlines out of Washington never seem to slow. Subscribe to The D.C. Brief to make sense of what matters most.

Please enter a valid email address.

* The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Please attempt to sign up again.

Sign Up Now

An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later.

Check here if you would like to receive subscription offers and other promotions via email from TIME group companies.

You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you!

For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

Contact us at letters@time.com.