ExclusiveJoe Biden: A Long Road to the Presidency

Welcome to American Legends. My name is Tiffany Brannon. Each culture has its legends, and that could be myths or different stories. But here in America, our greatest legends are the wonderful heroes who are right from our history pages. Now, some of these heroes are very famous, and some are obscure. But each person deserves to be discovered because each man or woman stands as a great example of how we can be better Americans in our daily lives. Throughout the course of American history, there have been several political figures who could be considered also-rans. Some of these men served many years in Congress, and they attempted multiple times to win the presidency, but often fell short. Today, we're going to talk about one of the most recent American presidents who, after decades of seeming like an also-ran, ended up winning the White House for himself. When Joe Biden became the 46th President of the United States in 2021, he was 78 years old, making him the oldest man to ever assume the presidency. Joe Biden could hardly be considered a late comer or a Johnny-come-lately in the American political scene. In fact, it's ironic that Biden has ended up being one of the older important American political figures because he started his political career as one of the younger ones. Joe Biden was born Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. to a largely Irish immigrant family in Pennsylvania. When his father had some business reverses, the family ended up moving to Delaware. And it would be Delaware with which Biden has been most closely associated throughout his political career. In his late high school years, Biden was a successful athlete, but a poor student. Despite that, he ended up going to college anyway, and he went to the University of Delaware and eventually studied law at Syracuse University. Despite being in the lower rankings of his class, Biden did become the class president. And after graduating and getting his Juris Doctorate degree, he passed the bar exam in Delaware and began his legal profession. Initially, Biden was registered as a Republican. But he found that he disagreed with a lot of the main political figures, both in the Republican and Democratic Party in Delaware at the time in the late 1960s. But he also disagreed with President-elect Richard Nixon, a Republican. So he was registered as an independent for a while before eventually, due to the influence of one of his legal employers, being swayed over to the Democratic Party. During the earlier days of his political career, particularly in the 1970s, Biden described himself as a liberal in terms of civil rights, the rights of elders, fair housing, fair payment. But more conservative on other issues such as abortion and similar issues, which could be considered, I suppose you could say, more moral issues. It's not surprising that Biden had an anti-abortion stance and some more conservative moral stances as he was raised and has remained a lifelong Catholic, making him the second president with that religious affiliation. In 1969, having already been a public defender, Biden began his political career officially when he became a councilman for Castle County. Just three years later, he decided to throw his hat in the ring on a bigger scale politically when he ran for the Senate seat in Delaware. Now, he was considered quite an underdog at this point. He was very young to be running and he didn't really have a lot of money for his campaign. He relied largely on friends and family members to serve in his campaign team. But it was just this that made him a powerful candidate. He came from a simple grassroots background. He was young, so he appealed to the baby boomer generation. He was a family man and he just seemed like sort of an average Joe. And because of that, he ended up winning the election and becoming the seventh youngest senator in U.S. history. But not long after the election, tragedy struck the Biden family. At this point, Biden was married to a fellow student from Syracuse University, Nelia Hunter, and they had three children. Two sons, Beau, who was actually named Joe Jr., and Hunter, and an 18-month-old daughter, Naomi. Tragically, Nelia and the three children were in a horrible car crash and both Mrs. Biden and their daughter died instantly. The two sons were badly injured, but not life-threateningly. Joe Biden was grief-stricken and felt at this point he really didn't want to continue with his life, let alone his political career. He seriously considered resigning or not even taking his appointment as a senator so that he could just care for his sons, and he even contemplated suicide at this point. But his friends, family, and political allies convinced him that he needed to fulfill his duty and become a senator. In 1975, Biden found a new reason to live, besides the Senate and his two sons, when he met Jill Jacobs, who at the time was Jill Stevenson, but was separated and getting a divorce from her husband, Bill Stevenson. They met on a blind date set up by his brother, and it was an unlikely pairing because this young divorcee was very apolitical. She was just focused on being a teacher at the time, and interestingly, her husband had brought her to some rallies by Joe Biden when he was first running for the Senate because he was a supporter of his, and in spite of her misgivings or not being that interested, Jill found that they had an immediate connection, and they began dating over the course of the next couple of years before she eventually overcame her reservations of the fact that she'd have to become mother to these two young sons, and she wasn't sure she was ready for another relationship, but they ended up getting married in 1977. And since then, Jill Biden has been an important, not so much political ally, but just a life partner for Joe Biden, helping him to really find more meaning in his life and be a mother for his two young sons, who were seven and eight at the time of their marriage. After that, Joe Biden continued his career in the Senate, proving to be a powerful leader of the Democratic Party, whether the Democrats had the majority or not in the Senate at the time, and also being oftentimes sort of a go-between man between the Democrats and the Republicans because he did often have more centrist or moderate policies, particularly on some issues which he considered more moral. Now, throughout the many decades of his political career, he has changed his stances on many issues, but his consistent presence in Washington politics over the decades has shown that, I'd say he knows how to change with the times and to say the thing that seems to be what's current for the day. He's always referred to himself as sort of a man of the people and a representative of the people, so I think he has continued to shift to represent what the main platform of the Democratic Party is at the time. During his years in the Senate, he gained the nickname Amtrak Joe, because rather than moving his whole family to Washington, D.C., they continued to live in Wilmington, Delaware, but he would commute using the Amtrak train every day, back and forth, so that he'd be able to be home in time to tuck the children in at night. And because of his not only use of the Amtrak trains, but his understanding of how important it is for many people for public transit, he advocated more funding and support for Amtrak throughout his political career. During his many years in Congress, Biden served on many important committees, including the Judiciary Committee in the 1980s and 90s and several foreign relations committees. By serving in these foreign committees, particularly dealing with the contentious situation in the Balkans, Biden became respected as one of the leading international policy Democrats, and this led to his eventual candidacy for being president. He advocated a few different important acts, such as the Violent Crime Act in the 1980s, which was nicknamed the Biden Crime Act, and a bill about harassment and violence against women. While he has stated that he is most proud of the bill regarding harassment and violence against women, he later said that he regretted the Violent Crime Act and the way it was presented at the time, and the way that it has been viewed in years since then. Like his main opponent in the 2020 election, Donald Trump, Biden had aspirations for the White House decades before he ended up winning it. In fact, in 1987, Biden first tried to run for president. In fact, he announced his candidacy as one of the Democratic candidates, and he made speeches. He was really trying to make a goal of it for the 1988 election. Before the primaries, he began to come under fire for plagiarism in his speeches. Several of his speeches were found to include quotes from both the Kennedy brothers and several other important political figures from the past few decades without proper citation. He kind of just said them like they were his own. And on a couple of these instances, his campaign team took the blame. During this time, it also became known that when he was in college, he had been found guilty of plagiarizing a paper in his law course. Now, this didn't end up being a failing mark on his final grade, but it just became part of the overwhelming, embarrassing situation that he seemed to have a tendency to cheat. So he withdrew from the election. Several years later, in 2008, he tried again. And this was largely in response to feeling like the country needed a new direction. He kind of thought about running in 2004 as well, because he wasn't too happy with how Bush was doing as president. But finally, by 2008, he really was thinking of it. So he was one of the main contenders. But it was a very publicized race, and there were several other much more controversial, or at least noteworthy, Democrats. Most notably, Hillary Clinton, who would have been the first real female candidate in one of the major political parties, and Barack Obama, who would become the first black candidate. Although Biden and Obama initially were fierce rivals who thought very little of each other, Biden ended up realizing he was losing a lot of steam, and eventually, Obama named him as his running mate. Now, although the president and vice president are supposed to be a team, throughout American history, they've often been barely acquaintances, just two politicians who are together for the fact that it's good for business. But that's not the case with Obama and Biden. They actually ended up becoming good friends during the campaign, and have remained so to this day. Leading up to the 2008 election, although their backgrounds and styles were very different, Obama appreciated that Biden had a different background and attracted a different part of the constituency. The Obama campaign team wasn't too happy with some of the things Biden would say, because he, during his years in the Senate and as a vice presidential candidate, gained a reputation of opening his mouth and sticking his foot in it. And so these gaffes became known as Joe bombs, so the Obama team purposely didn't let him know much that was going on during the campaign, which he resented. But eventually, they came to good terms and developed a good working relationship, and Obama-Biden won in 2008. Biden served as the vice president for eight years during both terms of Obama's presidency. Some political advisors pressured Obama to drop Biden when he was running for re-election and perhaps replace him with Hillary Clinton. But Obama said that he never even considered that. During his years as the vice president, Biden was given credit for helping the team avoid groupthink, because he would often have a different opinion and somewhat of a stabilizing or neutralizing position, because he would have a different background and just a very different point of view on the matters at hand. His background, particularly in foreign affairs, was used by Obama in working on all his campaign principles, and he helped Obama with formulating the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. When Obama was showing rather disappointing popularity in the 2012 election, it was in fact Biden's debate with Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, which really turned the tide for the Democratic ticket. After the eight years in the White House, in 2017, Biden was granted a Presidential Medal of Freedom, given to him in his last days as president by Obama, in recognition of his long service of the country. And since Biden didn't try to run for his own presidency in 2016, which is often the pattern, the vice president will then try to become the next president, it seemed like Biden's days in the political limelight had come to an end. He was no longer in the Senate, even though, interestingly, he was running for re-election for the Senate at the same time he was running for vice president, and he actually won both, as was allowed by the laws in Delaware. But at that point, he turned to what most people do in their retirement years of politics. He wrote a book, he began doing speaking tours, and he even did some guest teaching at some universities. Biden's political career was not over. In 2020, amidst the most diverse group of candidates that ever has been amassed by the Democratic Party, 77-year-old Joe Biden ended up pulling ahead, and was supported by the party because he was deemed the most electable. Although it would seem that some of the candidates who were either women, or people of color, or the man who was in a same-sex marriage, deep down, the Democratic Party wasn't quite ready to have anyone that progressive, so it was deemed best to have someone who was more traditional in his personal lifestyle, but who espoused the more liberal policies of the Democratic Party. Several times throughout the campaign, he referred to himself as a bridgeway candidate, a go-between, basically highlighting the fact that he wasn't the end-all, be-all. He saw himself as the gateway, or the bridge, to that next generation of Democratic, or Republican, but the next generation of candidates, the next generation of the governing body of the United States. And it certainly would seem that the next generation would need to come along soon, because Biden was older than several of the presidents who came directly before him. The 2020 election was very unusual, because it was in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the two senior citizen candidates didn't have to do the really aggressive campaigning which usually is required in an election. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic became the focal point of, really, the whole election, the stark contrast of two different points of view on how the emergency should be handled. Whereas Republicans, headed by Donald Trump, the incumbent president, were downplaying the magnitude and the danger of the pandemic, and the necessity of wearing masks and social distancing, the Democrats, led by Joe Biden, really emphasized it was so important. So most of the Democratic events were digital, or just with people in their cars, very much social distanced. Biden was always seen wearing a mask. And his campaign platform became, well, he used the slogan, Build Back Better. And with that alliteration, he was saying that his idea would be to not only help America recover from the worst economic downturn that had happened since the Great Depression, and even worse than that in some ways, that he would help America get better than it was even before that. And he emphasized strengthening America in terms of health care, education, crime, welfare, you name it. It was all about making America more democratic, more equal. Some could even say leaning more towards socialist. Although he did defeat the actual socialist candidate, Bernie Sanders, for the nomination. To bring in more of the diversity for his ticket, he named Kamala Harris as his running mate. And she became the first female vice president, as well as the first black vice president and the first Asian-American vice president. The 2020 election would be one of the most hotly contested in history, as Donald Trump and other Republicans insisted that there had been massive voter fraud due to the use of mail-in ballots, and that a good deal of the people who voted for Joe Biden were either fictional or dead, or they'd been counted twice, or they were illegal. It wasn't an accurate representation of what the people wanted. Nevertheless, the official standing remains that Biden won with the largest amount of votes ever cast for one candidate. During his presidency, Biden struggled with waning popularity and increased dissatisfaction with his handling of the pandemic. It also was just a very bad time for the country, as inflation rose to all-time highs, and the average American was definitely feeling that at the grocery store, at the gas pump, and in every other aspect of American life. Meanwhile, Biden emphasized the importance of continuing safety measures to control the ongoing pandemic, rolling out the vaccine, and providing relief in the financial sense. His first acts in office were to undo the things that Donald Trump had did, namely having the United States rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, which was relating to studying and trying to control the effects of global warming, having the United States rejoin the World Health Organization, which was working particularly regarding the pandemic, and reducing many of the usages of oil for fuel, trying to turn to more sustainable or clean forms of energy, which ended up stopping the building of the Keystone Pipeline, and instead redirecting the focus to alternative energy sources. It was also during Biden's presidency that two major military conflicts really broke out. The Ukraine and Russia war, and then eventually the Gaza and Israeli war. During those two military conflicts, Biden remained staunchly in support of Ukraine and President Zelensky, on one side, and in support of Israel in the other military conflict. Many people were very dissatisfied with Biden's handling of both of those conflicts. Many Democrats were very much against his support of Israel in that conflict, since, ironically, most liberal people here in the United States were supporting Gaza at that time, so that wasn't a very popular opinion for him. Leading up to the 2024 election, Biden announced his candidacy for re-election, despite ongoing rumors throughout his four years that he wouldn't attempt to run again. Largely because he was older than any other president, and the only president so far to turn 80 while in office, people were concerned about Biden's mental health and physical strength. Those questions were raised during the 2020 election, but they continued to be raised to even greater degrees throughout 2020, and throughout his four years in the White House. And many conspiracy theories sprung up on the opposition side that he had died years ago and was being replaced by an actor, he had been cloned, it was just CGI or AI to show images of him that didn't really exist anymore, that he was on drugs, that he was a puppet, what have you, a lot of those were jokes. But many people did truly believe that Joe Biden, as he was known for years, no longer was alive or was not the person in the public eye. And if there ever would be a few weeks or a few months that he wasn't seen, immediately the rumors would start, has Biden died? Is Biden really sick? So it's not surprising that it was a bit of a shock when he said he was running again. The 2024 election became a rematch of 2020 as former President Donald Trump ran again and gained huge support from the Republican Party and what has been known as the Mega Americans, following in his campaign slogan, Make America Great Again. After their first debate, people on both sides immediately began commenting on what a poor showing Biden had made in this debate, that he seemed confused, that he was saying things that didn't really make sense, that he looked somewhat dazed. And it was shocking to see that the more mainstream media, which usually supported him and other Democratic candidates, was being so critical of him. And within a few days, he announced that he would not, in fact, be running and he stepped aside. So his vice president, Kamala Harris, became the candidate in what was actually a rather controversial move because since the vice president has the right to take over as president for the acting president, if he had declared himself mentally incompetent or physically unable, Kamala could have taken over as president. But he just sort of named her as the candidate, which you really aren't supposed to do. The party didn't really nominate her in the official way. But be that as it may, she was the candidate and she ended up losing. And so Donald Trump won again in the only time that a president has had two non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland, the only one with whom that's happened. So Joe Biden joined Benjamin Harrison as only the second president to be the dash between the two terms of another president. Biden's long career in politics showed that he has a lot of determination, especially after being defeated multiple times, even for the candidacy for president. And some of his quotes reflect that, saying failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable. When he was first running for president in 1988, he is quoted as saying, for too long in the society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community. He once commented, make sure of two things. Be careful. Microphones are always hot and understand that in Washington, D.C., a gaffe is when you tell the truth. So be careful. That quote struck me as interesting. Not sure exactly what he's trying to say there. In his inaugural speech in 2021, in what was really not a public ceremony because of concerns about security, as well as the ongoing pandemic, Biden really emphasized that this was a victory for the American people and that he called for unity and for an improvement over what had been happening. For instance, he said, hear one another, see one another, show respect to one another. Politics doesn't have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn't have to be a cause for total war. And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured. Summing it up in that speech, he said, this is America's day. This is democracy's day, a day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve. Through a crucible for the ages, America has been tested anew and America has risen to the challenge. Today, we celebrate the triumph, not of a candidate, but of a cause, the cause of democracy. The people, the will of the people has been heard and the will of the people has been heeded. It's almost too soon after Biden's presidency to say how he is being regarded. Even this book on presidents just mentions the first year or so of his presidency, as do most publications which are actually in print so far. In a few years, there'll be a lot more written about all four years of Biden's presidency. Of course, there's plenty of commentary online. And it was so recent, I think we all remember it pretty well. But it's very interesting to study Biden's presidency because he did have some distinct disadvantages of being in office, really with the pandemic being a major issue for the first couple of years, trying to recover from that with all the inflation and then all these wars springing up. I think that even many people who are supportive of the Democratic Party and Biden's basic principles would agree that he was rather a weak leader, either because he was trying too hard to please everyone, or maybe he just was getting a little too old and lacking some of that fire he had as a younger candidate and just a younger politician. Either way, Biden holds a few records as the oldest, and he is only the sixth vice president to become a president in his own right through election. Thank you for spending this time with me. And I hope you'll join me next time for more American Legends.