Vice President Joe Biden, who has semi-publicly grappled with a 2016 presidential run for months, allegedly leaked the rumor of his own possible run to a New York Times columnist in August, and also reportedly met privately with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) around the same time, where he may have proposed a running-mate spot, according to reports circulating Tuesday afternoon.

In a meditative look at the trajectory of Biden's rumored run, Politico notes that the VP's late August meeting with Warren could have been a presidential ticket calculation.

Politico's Edward-Isaac Dovere writes:

At the end of August, while friends were still worrying aloud that he was in the worst mental state possible to be making this decision, he invited Elizabeth Warren for an unannounced Saturday lunch at the Naval Observatory. According to sources connected with Warren, he raised Clinton’s scheduled appearance at the House Benghazi Committee hearing at the end of October, even hinting that there might be a running-mate opening for the Massachusetts senator.

The Biden-Warren ticket has been a distant glimmer of hope for Democrats skeptical of Hillary Clinton's establishment politics but reluctant to give their votes to the democratic socialism of Bernie Sanders. The Politico report shed some light on Biden's potential run, but the prospect of Warren as a running mate remains shrouded in secrecy—the two met alone in August, and aides "have been particularly secretive about the meeting," according to Politico.

Publicly, the two appear to still have their differences. In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper earlier this month, Warren highlighted her and Biden's disagreements in the past, saying that the two were on opposite sides of financial reform. But she also highlighted where the two agreed, saying that the August meeting took up multiple policy issues.

"How we're going to build America's middle class, about how we're going to create opportunities for working families, how we're going to create opportunities for poor families," she said, explaining that helping America's poor and middle class should be a primary role of government.

"Joe Biden is somebody who cares about America. And who cares about America's families. I think that's been true for a long time. So that's what [our] conversation was about," Warren said.

Biden and Warren are slated to appear together as keynote speakers, along with Chicago mayor and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, at a American job and infrastructure spending forum on Thursday in Washington, D.C.