Will Joe Biden be running against Trump in 2020?

Former Vice President Joe Biden has, once again, teased a potential run in the 2020 presidential election while speaking to a crowd of firefighters this week.

As he comes down to his final stages of mulling over a possible White House bid, the Delaware Democrat delivered a speech at the International Association of Fire Fighters’ annual legislative conference on Tuesday morning where he was greeted with boisterous chants of “run Joe run!”

“I appreciate the energy you showed when I got up here. Save it a little longer, I may need it in a few weeks,” Mr Biden teased to the crowd of firefighters. “Be careful what you wish for.”

This isn’t the first time the former vice president teased about running for president in 2020. Last month, Mr Biden told University of Delaware students at a speaking engagement that he is “very close” to announcing his decision on vying for the Democratic nomination. He revealed that his family is on-board with a 2020 presidential campaign.

“The first hurdle for me was deciding whether or not I am comfortable taking the family through what would be a very, very difficult campaign,” the 76-year-old Democrat said during a moderated conversation with presidential historian Jon Meacham. “No matter who runs. It’s a very difficult campaign. The primary will be very difficult. And the general election, running against President Trump, I don’t think that he’s likely to stop at anything, whomever he runs against.”

In February 2019, several sources revealed Mr Biden has been making preparations for an anticipated presidential run. His staffers were told to be ready “at a moment’s notice” to make a formal announcement.

Mr Biden has also been increasing the number of public appearances in the past several months where he has postured himself as the best hope the Democratic Party has in beating President Donald Trump.

Delaware Senator Tom Carper, Mr Biden’s longtime friend and former colleague, even offered an early endorsement for the Democratic hopeful. “He has the best chance of beating Trump, hands down,” Mr Carper said, referring to the former vice president. “On a scale of one to 10, that’s probably about a 12 for us.”

Mr Trump made some pre-emptive attacks on Mr Biden and his potential 2020 run. Before delivering the State of the Union last month, the president said Mr Biden is “dumb,” and that he wished he gets to run against him in the general election.

“I hope it’s Biden,” Mr Trump said at a private lunch for television anchors on February 5. “Biden was never very smart. He was a terrible student. His gaffes are unbelievable. When I say something that you might think is a gaffe, it’s on purpose; it’s not a gaffe. When Biden says something dumb, it’s because he’s dumb.”

The 76-year-old politician is also facing criticism from progressives. “In 2020, Biden-style centrism will become a toxic and losing brand of politics in Democratic primaries,” Waleed Shaheed, a left-wing activist who worked in Cynthia Nixon’s New York gubernatorial campaign, said.

Mr Biden pushed off criticism from progressives by stating that he is “trying to decode what appetite exists for a centrist who is unapologetic about wanting to work more with Republicans, and who will turn 78-years-old two weeks after Election Day 2020”

The former vice president also received backlash last week when a resurfaced video showed the then-Senator Biden pushing for a tough crime bill in 1993, which has been credited with leading an era of mass incarceration of African-Americans, with a speech on the Senate floor warning of “predators on our streets.”

“We have predators on our streets that society has in fact, in part because of its neglect, created,” Mr Biden, who fervently advocated for the bill it has been referred to as “the Biden Bill,” said.

“They are beyond the pale many of those people, beyond the pale,” he added. “And it’s a sad commentary on society. We have no choice but to take them out of society.”

In hindsight, Mr Biden said he regrets pushing for the racist bill.

“It was a big mistake that was made,” he said of the bill, which disproportionately targeted and locked up African-Americans. “We were told by the experts that ‘crack, you never go back’, that the two were somehow fundamentally different. It’s not. But it’s trapped an entire generation.”

Although Mr Biden’s friends and colleagues say it is likely for the 76-year-old to launch a presidential campaign, a formal announcement for his candidacy is not expected to come before April.