Biden: Mondale talked me into being VP

Published April 11, 2012 4:00am ET



Vice President Joe Biden revealed today that only agreed to serve as vice president for Barack Obama after Walter Mondale, convinced him to take the job.

“‘You have one purpose, that’s to serve the president, to serve the president,'” Biden recalled Mondale saying when he called the former vice president under Jimmy Carter for advice. Prior to that conversation, Biden said he had told Obama “I will do anything I can to help you, but I don’t want to be vice president.”

Mondale is famous for having lost 49 states to President Ronald Reagan in his 1984 presidential bid, after losing his seat as vice president when Carter lost after one term in the White House.

Reagan famously won a debate against Mondale when he joked, “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience
.”