Former Vice President Joe Biden will run for president in 2020, according to Chris Matthews, who left no room for error.
"I've talked to his family. He's running. OK? Fact," said Matthews, the host of MSNBC's "Hardball."
Matthews made the declaration during a Friday interview in Philadelphia with NBC10 while promoting his new book, "Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit."
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And Biden should run because he would help the Democrats win back some of the blue-collar voters they lost in the last election, Matthews said.
That appeal is even stronger in this state, according to the host.
"In many ways, he's the third senator from Pennsylvania," Matthews said. "He's always talking about his Scranton roots."
Though Biden is a seven-time senator from Delaware, he grew up in Scranton and regularly talks about the lessons he learned there.
"I am so proud of representing my state, and it is my state and I love it," Biden said of Delaware numerous times as senator. "But Scranton never leaves you. And Pennsylvania never leaves you."
Some of his other greatest hits on Scranton involve stories about about the "grit" and perseverance of its residents.
During his 2008 Democratic National Convention speech, he described it this way:
"My dad -- my dad, who fell on hard times, always told me, though, 'Champ, when you get knocked down, get up. Get up.'"
Biden lived in Scranton until he was 10, but he often talks as if he never left. And Scranton residents still seem to believe he's one of them.
How popular is he in Scranton? When he was campaigning for Hillary Clinton last year and they stopped in northeastern Pennsylvania on Aug. 15, 2016, she opened for him. During her speech, the crowd was chanting, "Joe! Joe! Joe!" and the applause for him was louder than it was for her. Biden also talked twice as long as Clinton.
It's that hometown appeal that the Democrats need in 2020, Matthews said.
Biden is "a regular guy," and not some liberal elite, Matthews said. He'd rather eat ice cream and taffy and keep it casual at Rehoboth Beach than go to the more posh Martha's Vineyard.
"The Democrats gotta get back to being the party of regular people: firefighters, waitresses, cops. Regular people," Matthews said. "I don't like talking ethnically, but that's a fact. They've lost the working class whites and they've got to get them back."
A Biden spokesman told NBC10 they had no official comment on what Matthews said and pointed to a recent Vanity Fair interview.
In an interview with Vanity Fair last month, Biden said he hadn't made up his mind on running.
"I haven't decided to run. But I've decided I'm not going to decide not to run. We'll see what happens," he said.