Joe Biden tears up on ‘The View’ talking about his late son: ‘I hope he’s proud of me’

“When I get up in the morning, I think about … I hope he's proud of me," Biden said of his late son, Beau, during his first interview as a 2020 presidential candidate.

Former Vice President Joe Biden got emotional during his appearance on "The View" Friday morning, his first interview since announcing his 2020 Democratic presidential bid.Read moreABC / ABC

by Rob Tornoe

Published Apr. 26, 2019, 12:46 p.m. ET

In his first televised interview since launching his 2020 presidential campaign, former Vice President Joe Biden teared up on The View when asked if he was running because of encouragement from his late son, Beau.

“No, he’s not why I’m running, but I hope —,” Biden said as he began to get emotional. “When I get up in the morning, I think about — I hope he’s proud of me.”

Biden, 76, touched on several topics during the hour-long program, including the treatment of Anita Hill during her 1991 testimony about Clarence Thomas before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Biden apologized for the way Hill was treated, but said he didn’t think he personally treated her badly.

“I believed Dr. Hill, I believed what she was saying,” Biden said. “There were a lot of mistakes made across the board, and for those I apologize. We could have conducted it better, but I believed Dr. Hill from the beginning, and I said it.”

Biden, who is four years older than President Donald Trump, flatly said “no” when asked if he would commit to serving for only one term if elected president.

"It’s a legitimate question to ask, about my age.... Hopefully I can demonstrate not only that with age comes wisdom, but an experience that can make things a lot better,” Biden said. “But that’s for you all to decide, not me.”

Despite his late entrance into the race, Biden has managed to put Trump on the defensive thanks to an announcement video that centered around the president’s comments following a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. After the rally, Trump said there was “blame on both sides” for violence that led to the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer.

"I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general. Whether you like it or not, he was one of the great generals,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House Friday morning. “People were there protesting the taking down of the monument of Robert E. Lee. Everybody knows that.”

An appearance on The View is nothing new for Biden. The former vice president has appeared on the show seven times, including in December 2017, when he consoled a crying Meghan McCain, brought to tears when the two discussed the impact her late father, Sen. John McCain, had on Biden’s son.

“One of the things that gave Beau courage was John,” Biden said, referencing that the two suffered from the same form of brain cancer. “Beau talked about your dad’s courage. Not about illness, but about his courage.”

Biden and his wife, Jill, will sit down with ABC’s Robin Roberts on Good Morning America on Tuesday. His first major public event will be at a Pittsburgh union hall on Monday, but he was in Philadelphia on Thursday for a high-dollar fund-raiser hosted by Comcast Corp. senior executive vice president David L. Cohen.