EXCERPT:
BIDEN: "The president and I — everybody knows — I think everybody knows we did not only serve together, but our families are close. We became very close personal friends. Some of the vice presidential scholars and presidential scholars have written they think there’s probably no other administration where the president and vice president became as personally close. I grew to respect him and he’s just a man of great honor and discipline. And his family, he and my wife and Michelle are close friends. They went over to see each other the other day. So I didn’t want it to look like he was putting his thumb on the scale here and that I’m going to do this based on who I am, not by the president going out and trying to say, 'This is the guy you should be with.' That’s why I asked him not to. I’m very — I’m incredibly proud to have served with him. The thing I’m proudest of is we coincidentally were each in a different part of the country and we were each talking to groups of people that were being televised. And at the same day, purely coincidentally, we were asked the question 'What are you proudest of in your administration?' You know what he said — he said the same thing, probably a little more clearly than I did. He said, 'Not one single whisper of scandal.' That’s because of Barack Obama."