Joe being Joe.

(CNN) – Vice President Joe Biden said Friday that if not for the economic collapse surrounding the 2008 presidential race, Sen. John McCain might have beat President Barack Obama.

“The truth of the matter is, Barack knows it, I know, had the economy not collapsed around your ears, John, in the middle of literally, as things were moving, I think you probably would have won,” Biden said during the annual forum at the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University.

“It would have been incredibly, incredibly, incredibly close. You inherited a really difficult time,” Biden said.