Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States since 2021. Wikipedia
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (/ˈbaɪdən/ BY-dən; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under President Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden moved with his family to Delaware in 1953. He graduated from the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and to the U.S. Senate in 1972. As a senator, Biden drafted and led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act. He also oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Biden ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. In 2008, Obama chose Biden as his running mate, and he was a close counselor to Obama during his two terms as vice president. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, defeated incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence. He is the oldest president in U.S. history, and the first to have a female vice president.
As president, Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent recession. He signed bipartisan bills on infrastructure and manufacturing. He proposed the Build Back Better Act, which failed in Congress, but aspects of which were incorporated into the Inflation Reduction Act that he signed into law in 2022. Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. He worked with congressional Republicans to resolve the 2023 United States debt-ceiling crisis by negotiating a deal to raise the debt ceiling. In foreign policy, Biden restored America's membership in the Paris Agreement. He oversaw the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that ended the war in Afghanistan, leading to the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban seizing control. He responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and authorizing civilian and military aid to Ukraine. During the Israel–Hamas war, Biden condemned the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militants as terrorism, announced military support for Israel, and sent humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.[1][2][3] In April 2023, Biden announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 2024 presidential election, and is now the presumptive nominee.
Early life (1942–1965)
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942,[4] at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania,[5] to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr.[6][7] The oldest child in a Catholic family of English, French, and Irish descent, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James.[8]
Biden's father had been wealthy and the family purchased a home in the affluent Long Island suburb of Garden City in the fall of 1946,[9] but he suffered business setbacks around the time Biden was seven years old,[10][11][12] and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents in Scranton.[13] Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work.[14] Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten,[15] the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield.[16][17][11][13] Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.[13][14][18]
At Archmere Academy in Claymont,[19] Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team.[13][20] Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years.[21][22] He graduated in 1961.[21] At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football,[23][24] and, as an unexceptional student,[25] earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science.[26][27]
Biden had a stutter and has mitigated it since his early twenties.[28] He has described his efforts to reduce it by reciting poetry before a mirror.[22][29]
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)
Biden married Neilia Hunter, a student at Syracuse University, on August 27, 1966,[26][30] after overcoming her parents' disinclination for her to wed a Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York.[31] They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III, Robert Hunter Biden, and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden.[26]
Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968. He ranked 76th in a class of 85 students after failing a course because he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school.[25] He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.[4]
Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett in 1968 and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican".[32][33] He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968.[32] Local Republicans attempted to recruit Biden, but he registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.[32]
In 1969, Biden practiced law, first as a public defender and then at a law firm headed by a locally active Democrat,[34][32] who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party;[35] Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat.[32] He and another attorney also formed a law firm.[34] Corporate law did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well.[13] He supplemented his income by managing properties.[36]
Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council in 1970 on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs.[37][38] The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts.[39][40][41] Biden won the general election, defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971.[42][43] He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift.[44][45] During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.[45]
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Richard Nixon's conduct of the war.[46] While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments at a time when most draftees were sent to the war. Based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment in 1968; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.[47]
1972 U.S. Senate campaign in Delaware
Biden defeated Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs to become the junior U.S. senator from Delaware in 1972. He was the only Democrat willing to challenge Boggs and, with minimal campaign funds, he was thought to have no chance of winning.[34][13] Family members managed and staffed the campaign, which relied on meeting voters face-to-face and hand-distributing position papers,[48] an approach made feasible by Delaware's small size.[36] He received help from the AFL–CIO and Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell.[34] His platform focused on the environment, withdrawal from Vietnam, civil rights, mass transit, equitable taxation, health care and public dissatisfaction with "politics as usual".[34][48] A few months before the election, Biden trailed Boggs by almost thirty percentage points,[34] but his energy, attractive young family, and ability to connect with voters' emotions worked to his advantage,[18] and he won with 50.5% of the vote.[48]
Death of wife and daughter
A few weeks after Biden was elected senator, his wife Neilia and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware, on December 18, 1972.[26][49] Neilia's station wagon was hit by a semi-trailer truck as she pulled out from an intersection. Their sons Beau (aged 3) and Hunter (aged 2) were in the car, and were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Beau with a broken leg and other wounds and Hunter with a minor skull fracture and other head injuries.[50] Biden considered resigning to care for them,[18] but Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him not to.[51] Biden contemplated suicide and was filled with anger and religious doubt.[52][53] He wrote that he "felt God had played a horrible trick" on him,[54] and had trouble focusing on work.[55][56]
Second marriage
Biden met teacher Jill Tracy Jacobs in 1975 on a blind date.[57] They married at the United Nations chapel in New York on June 17, 1977,[58][59] and spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in the Hungarian People's Republic.[60][61] Biden credits her with the renewal of his interest in politics and life.[62] The couple attends Mass at St. Joseph's on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware.[63][64][65]
Their daughter, Ashley Biden,[26] is a social worker and is married to physician Howard Krein.[66] Jill helped raise her stepsons, Beau and Hunter. Beau became an Army judge advocate in Iraq and later Delaware attorney general;[67] he died of brain cancer in 2015.[68][69] Hunter has worked as a Washington lobbyist and investment adviser; his business dealings, personal life, and legal issues have come under significant scrutiny during his father's presidency.[70][71]
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