Joe Biden Reveals He Asked Barack Obama to Hold off on Declaring His Endorsement

Joe Biden is officially in the run for president in 2020 and asked Barack Obama not to endorse him.

Mere hours after the 76-year-old announced his presidential campaign for 2020, he told reporters that he specifically asked former president Obama to hold off on publically giving him his support.

“I asked President Obama not to endorse,” Joe told reporters on Thursday. “Whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits.”

Katie Hill, a spokeswoman for Obama, gave PEOPLE a statement on Thursday wherein she said that Barack saw his selecting of Joe Biden as his Vice President in 2008 as “one of the best decisions he ever made.”

She added that the pair formed a strong bond over the last decade as he served as Vice President alongside Barack during both terms and that he “relied” on Joe during both his campaigns for “knowledge, insight, and judgment.”

Obama, who awarded Joe the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2017, hasn’t endorsed any of the candidates yet and according to a source who spoke with PEOPLE, it's not likely to happen anytime soon.

He told the publication that it is “unlikely” that Barack would throw his weight behind any of the candidates so early on in the race and would rather have the candidates “make their cases directly to the voters.”

On Thursday, Joe Biden became the 21st candidate to announce his bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination.

During his announcement video, Joe said that the nation’s character would “forever and fundamentally” altered if Trump is allowed to serve eight years as president and added that he could not “stand by and watch that happen.”

The reason for his decision he stated in the video’s caption which read:

“The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy…everything that has made America — America — is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States.”

Donald Trump soon responded to his bid announcement and told “Sleepy Joe” that he hopes he is intelligent enough to make it past other candidates that “truly have some very sick & demented ideas.”

The former vice president previously and unsuccessfully ran for president in 1988 and again in 2008. He considered running back in 2016, but due to the death of his son Beau, he didn’t, a decision he later regretted.

Politico/Morning Consult released a poll this week that showed Joe to be an early favorite. Joe holds a 6-point advantage over Senator Bernie Sanders, among Democratic primary voters, while he leads Trump by 8 points among registered voters.

“Sleepy Joe’s” announcement is barely a day old, and he is already getting mocked while many used the opportunity to tie in past accusations made against him.