A representative for Vice President Joe Biden pushed back on a Politico report Tuesday that suggested Biden had told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd his dying son’s wish that he run for president to “trial balloon” a potential campaign.
“The bottom line on the Politico story is that it is categorically false and the characterization is offensive,” a Biden spokesperson told NBC News. Biden’s team, however, did not confirm or deny that the vice president told Dowd that story.
Multiple anonymous stories told Politico that the story appearing in Dowd’s Aug. 1 column of Biden’s son Beau telling the vice president to challenge Hillary Clinton came from Biden himself. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in May.