family, and this sounds corny, but we found purpose in public life. we found purpose in public life. so we intent, the whole family, not just me, we intend to spend the next 15 months fighting for what we have always cared about, what my family has always cared about, with every ounce of our being, and working alongside the president and members of congress and our future nominee, i am absolutely certain we are fully capable of accomplishing extraordinary things. we can do this. and when we do, america won't just win the future. we will own the finish line. thank you all for being so gracious to jill and me for the last six and eight months and our whole career for that matter. but i'm telling you, we can do so much more. i'm looking forward to continuing to work with this man

to get it done. thank you all very much. [ applause ] >> that is the vice president of the united states, flanked by his wife dr. jill biden, and the president of the united states announcing something that had been speculation now for months whether or not he was indeed going to run for president, telling those gathered that he is not. he begin with a bit of bidenesque humor, thanking the president for the use of the rose garden. he believes they are now out of time, but mike viqueira, he added this phrase, i will not be silent. then he went on to give what some might say would have been the speech that he would have delivered had he decided to run. >> reporter: exactly right. and that window not closed was a reference to the fact that he was still grieving, del. he and his family after the untimely death earlier this year

of his son bo. it was said all along, you know, we have been treated to a series of leaks from the biden camp over the course of the last several months, gathering steam over the course of the last few weeks that this was the principal consideration. there was a "new york times" article written that opened the door to this kind of speculation. and the story line went like this, if joe biden could complete that process of grieves over the death of his son, then perhaps he would join this race, jump in, and the vice president announcing that the grieving process has gone on, but the window has now closed. he was unable to complete that process in time to get into the race, make a serious run for it, given all of the deadlines, all of the debates and everything else that goes into assembling the machinery to make a presidential one.

>> mike i have david shuster here with me. and you in washington. this is something that joe biden, the senator, now the vice president has wanted to do for his entire political career, so we not only saw a potential candidate saying, i'm not going to run, but in a very real sense that is the end of the political career of vice president joe biden. >> well, you are absolutely right. and you alluded to this a moment ago. joe biden made the speech that perhaps he would have made at the campaign trial or at the debate next week, or even at the dinner coming up in iowa, i believe scheduled for this saturday. if he in fact had decided to run. a lot of the speculation, some of the reporting based on what in retrospect is flimsy evidence. but joe biden put a measure of

finality on all of the speculation. the field is now hillary clinton's. many people will speculate on the timing of this. first of all coming after the debate in which hillary clinton was judge just to have a tour de force in a great debate last week, now putting distance in the latest round of polls that have come out between herself and bernie sanders. biden -- perhaps seeing the writing on the wall in that respect. and perhaps a measure of grace here, not having this hang over what is expected to be a tumultuous event tomorrow, and that is the testimony of hillary clinton over the benghazi killings. one thing is certain now, as you put it, a measure of finality here, joe biden delivering the speech we have heard so many times with so much passion, his

guy from pennsylvania coming through, the thing that appealed to so many democrats over the last several years, and really motivated those who were trying to get him into the race, but said joe biden disappointing a lot of those folks and pulling out. >> we're going to go now to a former senior advisor to senior john edwards. he is on the phone. chris, you heard mike viqueira say it, scranton joe, the guy in washington you felt most comfortable having a shot and brew with. your thoughts on the vice president today saying it's over, i'm not going to run. >> well, i think the calendar just become too difficult of a reality. i think the personal calener of him dealing with the loss of his son and the reality of the political calendar, it being almost late october and the first caucus just a few months

away, hit the logistical reality of putting up a campaign became too overwhelming. it was still possible to be done, and there was an opportunity for him to have a real impact in this race, but having worked in campaigns that started late, as well as ones that didn't, when you start late it's an obstacle that is not easily dealt with, and i think part of it probably had to deal with that, and running for president ain't easy. and that's true for every candidate, and i think part of him said you know what, i have done enough. and i think everyone has to respect that. >> chris stand by as well as mike viqueira. david shuster with me in the stew you. your thoughts. >> reporter: a couple of things, this is the last speech that joe biden has given where he gets this much attention.

so there is a certain finality, and he now has to live for the rest of his life no matter what happens that he is not going to run. secondly, joe biden was extremely close to pulling the trigger on this. he had been doing donor meetings -- >> and he wanted to run. >> he wanted to run. his family encouraged him. yesterday, the widow of bo biden, she told newspapers in delaware we are 100% behind pops running do campaign. but biden realized again time has passed him by. it's very difficult to start late in the campaign, particularly when you are looking like at challenger like hillary clinton. and secondly, biden has been

able to get all of this attention for the last several months, everybody bathed him in sort of positive light, what if he does this? he's very popular. the moment you declare you are a candidate, that dynamic changes. >> in fact it almost began to change yesterday when he was under scrutiny as to whether or not he did or did not tell the president to go after osama bin laden. at first he said i was in the room and i think we need to do more before we actually pull the trigger. then he said in the hallway, on the way, up, i said to the president follow your gut. >> and you can imagine the fact-checking yesterday, that only intensifies if he's a candidate. the other thing that is really significant in all of this, tomorrow would have been a huge day for hillary clinton and the entire democratic field if joe biden was in this race, because if hilary suffers damage tomorrow in front of the benghazi committee, that would ramp up the anticipation that

maybe joe biden is the democratic party savior. this minimizes any significance of tomorrow's hearings as far as the democratic nomination is concerned. republicans may use whatever testimony or inconsistencies exist tomorrow in the general election, but this takes benghazi right off of the table as far as the democratic nomination is concerned, and that's a very, very big deal right now. >> jeanie, the professor of scam pain management at nyu is with us by phone as well. and when we say joe biden was joe from scranton we really mean it. i ran in him a little while ago, and the first words out of his mouth were hell man i don't want to talk to you, i want to talk to her, are we seeing an end to kissing babies and shaking

hands. >> i just think about meeting him with my sons outside of a bookstore not that long ago, and he was happy to sit there and take pictures with everybody there. we spent an awful lot of time talking to the kids. i hope it's not the end of that kind of politician or that kind of era, but that is joe biden, and that was joe biden, and i would just say, listening to his speech it is so incredibly emotional, and it really does strike you that here is a guy who since he was 29 has been running for office, and he is, you know, essentially saying he will never do that again. but at the same time token he was very clear that he is focused on his policy priorities in helping the middle class, and he will be a strong voice for that. so i think this is a big win for the democratic party. they won't have that kind of divisiveness they would have faced had he decided to enter

the race. it does give the democrats this kind of incredible unity that republicans can only hope for at this point. >> jeanie we will come back to you in a short while. we're going to take a break. we're going to have more on the announcement just moments ago, joe biden saying he will not be running for president. we'll take a break. we'll be right back.

>> governments secretly paying ransoms. >> we were told never to disclose that they actually paid. >> are they saving lives or putting more at risk?

vice president joe biden coming out in the rose garden of the white house, announcing he is not going to be running. take a listen. >> as my family and i have worked through the grieving process, i have said all along, what i have said time and again to others, that it may very well be that that process by the time we get through it, closes the window on mounting a realistic campaign for president; that it may close. i have concluded it has closed. >> let's go now to our senior washington correspondent, mike viqueira. mike, as i was listening to the vice president, i couldn't help but be reminded of the fact he was pushing back against the democrats and republicans who seem more than willing to be running against the president's

record. the president going on 60 minutes saying if he had run for a third term, he would have been elected. is there a sense that biden may be the voice for the third obama legacy, trying to redefine the way the election is shaped? >> reporter: i'm not sure about that, del. i think what we're seeing here is the most attention, i think david shuster pointed this out, the most attention that joe biden is going to get for the next year and change anyway until the obama administration is out of office. i think the focus now, and what you are going to be hearing a lot of in the next minutes, hours, and days is how much this accrues to the democratic front runner, hillary clinton. much of the support that would have gone to joe biden was likely to go in the direction of hillary clinton. obviously another big day perhaps the second big day in as many weeks for hillary clinton coming off of that debate last

week where she was judged to have done so well, and received that big assist from bernie sanders who dismissed her, quote unquote, damn emails. so assuming that former secretary clinton does clear this hurdle and remains relatively unscathed from this big hearing on benghazi tomorrow, then i think you are going to be seeing a real momentum, a real freight train, a real coalescing behind her candidacy at this point. she is already putting distance between herself and bernie sanders in the polls. but it's still early, but certainly a good day for the clinton campaign, a bitter suite moment for joe biden and his family. >> what signal does this send to the republicans. because you are right, the democrats now appear to be unified, and also the fact that biden is not running, frees up

those people that might have wanted to work on a biden campaign. >> that's absolutely right. everybody talks about the ground game, the swing states, and obviously that would have been settled by the time we had gotten to next summer. at this point it's unclear exactly how much resources were actually in the wings waiting on the sidelines for joe biden. it's probably not insignificant. and anything that accrues to either candidate, bernie sanders or hillary clinton, or perhaps even martin o'malley, and the remaining candidates, would, you know, would be welcome, but i don't anticipate this is going to be -- in terms of the nuts and bolts and the ground game, it's going to be a major boom for any candidate. >> david shuster in the vernacular of washington, the resumes are being faxed, which was the old language, right now

they are being sent via email to the clinton campaign. and there are a lot of careers that are made or broke by picking the right candidate. so how close in your opinion did biden actually come to pulling the trigger in saying that he was going to run? >> i think he came very close. the fact that ted coffman, the senator from delaware was putting out statements saying hey, joe biden is not going to be bullied by hillary clinton. people had already made up their mind with you with hillary clinton or bernie sanders. there was a core of the biden crowd that was saying we have had our seven years now, it may be the prospect of joe biden attracted some of them, but we talk so much about the politics, and i think it is also worth pointing out as we chatting just a moment argentina, there is policy implications as well. if joe biden had gotten into this race, we were looking at a

very vigorous race over trade. hillary clinton saying that even though she supported the tpp trade deal as secretary of state, she is now against it. joe biden was going to have to defend this policy, and trade is a major wedge between democratic labor and the more establishment democrats. we will not have that debate now, because bernie sanders, martin o'malley, hillary clinton they are all in opposition to tpp, and it doesn't matter what listen son chaffy thinks because he is a non-factor. >> who is the winner now -- >> hillary clinton is a huge winner, because the intensity of the politics tomorrow is now off of the table. it doesn't matter if hillary clinton gets hit a little bit, because there's no alternative other than bernie sanders. there is still an large

anti-hillary clinton sentiment. but a lot of people took a look at bernie sanders in the debate, maybe now there's an opportunity for him to start to make more inroads. >> david shuster, mike viqueira, all of you, i thank you very much again. the news at this hour, the vice president saying he is not going to run for president. we are also following event theres the middle east very closely. israeli prime minister benjamin netenyahu in berlin for talks with angela merkel. european leaders are trying to end the violence that has been spiking between israelis and palestinians. and john kerry on his way to the middle east today. he is going to hold high-level talks with benjamin netenyahu tomorrow. barnaby phillips is live for us in berlin. and surely the daily violence going on right now is going to be topping all of the agendas. >> reporter: yes, and we have seen the german host saying

exactly the kinds of things that you would expect to see as benjamin netenyahu was on his way here, that the violence needs to de-escalate, that israel has the right to protect itself own citizens, but it should do so in a proportionate way. the interesting diplomatic initiative has come from e.u. partners, the french who have talked about some sort of international presence at the al aqsa mosque compound to reduce tensions there. but that is something that benjamin netenyahu has already rejected. his meeting with john kerry tomorrow very important because john kerry will fly on, we believe, eventually to the middle east in a meeting with the palestinian a leader. little grounds for optimism. >> barnaby also kerry heading to germany to talk with benjamin netenyahu tomorrow. what exactly will he be looking

for from the israeli prime minister? >> reporter: well, some way in which there's common ground for benjamin netenyahu and mahmoud abbas to sit down. in the past we have seen european governments take a firmer line on ending the settlement on the west bank. is that something now the americans are willing to put pressure on the israelis in private? perhaps. but the suspicion and mistrust is so entrenched right now, and the track record of the europeans and americans in bringing the two sides together successful, is so poor, that i have to repeat there is little aptism. >> benjamin netenyahu being blasted today for the comments

he made about the palestinians and the holocaust, what exactly is that all about. >> well what benjamin netenyahu said yesterday in a speech is that the grand mufti of muslim, the muslim leader of the palestinian people at that time, he is talking about the 1930s, 1940s, traveled here to berlin in 1941. that is correct. and that he had a meeting with hitler. and that during this meeting, essentially it was the grand muf mufti who planted the idea in hitler's head that european jews should be exterminated. until that point, ak coring to benjamin netenyahu, that was something that hitler had not been thinking of. since then benjamin netenyahu said he did not mean to on solve hitler of ultimate responsibility, but the role the grand mufti played in encouraging him should not be

ignored. the german response unequivocally, we, the germans are responsible for the holocaust. that is a key part of this country's moral identity. >> barnaby as always thank you very much. we are also following the latest developments concerning isil. canada's new leader saying he plans to call back jets involved in that fight. trudeau also revealed his plans for canada's military partnership going forward. jamie mcintyre has more. >> reporter: militarily canada's withdraw from the anti-isil bombing campaign is not all that significant. canada contributed only four fighter bombers to the effort, and for now the other 11 countries that have contributed bombers will take up the slack. but symbolically, politically,

it's a big blow to the united states. canada has been one of the u.s.'s most reliable partners, and the two countries also operate together in the defense of north america under nor rad. it's one of the few places where american troops are under foreign command. but in a phone call with president obama, the newly elected canadian prime minister made it clear that he is going to make good on his promise to end canada's combat mission in iraq and syria. >> we talked about canada's continued engagement as a strong member of the coalition against isil, and i committed that we would continue to engage in a responsible way that -- that understands how important canada has -- has a role to play in the fight against isil, but he understands the commitments i have made. >> reporter: canada's

contribution of war planes isn't the only loss to the united states. canada's newly elected prime minister trudeau has also promised to take canada out of the expensive f-35 joint strike fighter program. the most expensive fighter program that the pentagon has ever embarked on. their planes cost more than $100 million a copy. the prime minister says he wants to use the money instead to help rebuild canada's navy, and buy cheaper planes that are more geared to defending canada. that could hurt lockheed martin which makes the f-35, but could benefit boeing, which makes the f-18. because candidate may decide to buy the cheaper super-hornets. and that is jamie mcintyre reporting. he adds that canada's commitment to deploy fighter jets to the region was set to expirenyway in

march. we want to bring you up to date on the top story we are following at this hour. just a short while ago, shortly afterno afternoon, vice president joe biden walked into the rose garden and said he will not be running for president of the united states, in typical biden fashion he began with the bit of humor. he thanked the president for using the rose garden. he said i have concluded the window to run has closed. he added we are out of time, but he also said that i will not be silenced, saying for the next 15 months he will make sure the obama legacy continues. this is our american story. this is america tonight.

>> gang life...

>> more funerals are held and they ask what more can be done to end the violence in israel and the occupied territories. >> hello, i'm lauren taylor. we're live in london. also coming up, u.s. vice president joe bind announces he's not running for the country's top job. we'll tell you why. syria's president bashar al-assad makes a flying trip to russia thanking president putin for his military intervention. south africa students are sent back running from tear gas