Former Secretary of State John Kerry was overheard Sunday on the phone at a Des Moines hotel explaining what it would take for him to enter the presidential race amid “the possibility of Bernie Sanders taking down the Democratic Party — down whole,” NBC News reported Sunday. Kerry, one of Joe Biden’s highest-profile endorsers, was reportedly sitting in the lobby restaurant of the Renaissance Savery hotel where he was heard by an NBC News analyst saying “maybe I'm fucking deluding myself here,” and proceeding to explain that he would have to resign from the board of Bank America and give up his ability to make paid speeches in order to enter the race. He reportedly said donors like venture capitalist Doug Hickey would have to “raise a couple of million,” as such donors “now have the reality of Bernie.”

Kerry asserted in a tweet later on Sunday that he is “absolutely not running for president,” and that "Any report otherwise is fucking (or categorically) false." He then deleted that tweet and reposted it, without the profanity. "I’ve been proud to campaign with my good friend Joe Biden, who is going to win the nomination, beat Trump, and make an outstanding president.” Kerry, who served in the senate with Biden, was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 when he lost to President George W. Bush.