The majority of Joe Biden’s career was spent serving as a senator from Delaware. He is a seasoned politician. In 1972, Biden won his first Senate race, becoming the fifth-youngest senator in American history.
S.
History claims to have “history.”.
Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, Biden won numerous times. During his 36 years in the Senate, Biden participated in historic decisions like handling the fallout from President Bill Clinton’s impeachment following a scandal that shocked the White House.
CNN claims that in 1999, the Senate exonerated President Clinton after Biden cast “not guilty” votes on each of the two articles of impeachment. The Los Angeles Times claims that Biden voted in favor of the Iraq War in 2002, a choice that Barack Obama later came to regret.
Out of the spotlight of politics, Biden seemed to lead a very ordinary personal life. He temporarily lost his “appetite” for politics after the tragic death of his son Beau in 2015, according to the UVA Miller Center, and instead “created the Biden Foundation and the Biden Cancer Initiative” with his wife up until his presidential campaign.
However, scandals and tragedies have marred Biden’s life as he prepares to take office as president in 2020.
Biden, Joseph Robinette Jr. During World War II, on November 20, 1942, he was born. In Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden was raised as the eldest of four children. According to History, Biden’s family relocated to the Wilmington, Delaware region when he was 10 years old “where his father found work as a car salesman.”.
According to US News, Biden’s father was a member of the working class who “cleaned furnaces and sold used cars. Before enrolling at the “elite preparatory high school, Archmere Academy, Biden attended Catholic schools in Delaware. But while he was in school, Biden struggled with both his grades and his stutter. The young man was allegedly referred to by classmates as “Dash” and “Joe Impedimenta.”. “.
The president recognized that his stuttering setback aided his development in a promotional video titled “11 Things You May Not Know About Joe Biden.”. According to reports, he “would recite Yeats and Emerson to work on his public speaking.”.
In a CNN town hall speech, Biden also mentioned how his mother’s encouragement had guided him. She urged him, “Joey, don’t let this define you.”. Joey, don’t forget who you are. Joey, you can do this. The future president acknowledged that he still stutters occasionally while discussing how he remained a supporter of people who stammer. The only disability that people still make fun of is stuttering, if you think about it. That still makes people feel inferior, said Biden.
Joe Biden pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Delaware. One of his high school friends, Fred Sears, called Biden “a good-looking guy with a gift of gab” at the time. During his first year of college, Biden was allegedly “an aspirant football running back,” and “Biden was elected president of his class. An acquaintance from the football team remembered Biden as a nice young man. According to reports, Biden did not use tobacco or alcohol, and he frequently traveled in a convertible.
While going to college, Biden was a lifeguard in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden was reportedly the only white lifeguard working at a public pool in an area with a high African-American population. Additionally, Biden “was always right there,” according to Maurice Pritchett, a Wilmington educator at the time who spoke to The New York Times. And we were glad to have him. Biden allegedly “once left a Wilmington restaurant after the owner refused to serve a Black high school student.
“.
Biden finished his undergraduate studies at the University of Delaware with a double major in political science and history.
The New York Times claims that Joe Biden was referred to as “the teetotaling semi-jock with a sweater around his neck” and “the type who seemed more consumed with date nights than civil rights” at the University of Delaware. “.
Additionally, Biden is said to have threatened to end a date with a woman who lit a cigarette in his borrowed convertible. This incident occurred once. But Biden found his true love away from school. In 1964, he traveled to Florida with his friends for a spring break.
The boys then made the choice to travel to Nassau, Bahamas. Biden managed to enter a hotel pool undetected while on the island “by tying a guest towel around his waist and strutting confidently past the guards.”. Neilia Hunter, a young lady from Syracuse, caught Biden’s attention first. They were married a short while later.
Biden made a photo of himself from those early days available during his tenure as vice president. On the official @vp Instagram, he captioned the image, “Short sleeve button-downs are making a comeback, but health care has never gone out of style. “This picture of a young Biden with palm trees in the background and a red short-sleeved shirt went viral online.
Neilia Hunter was someone Joe Biden met while on vacation and wanted to be more involved with. The New York Times claims that Biden applied to the Syracuse University Law School because Hunter and her family were from upstate New York. In 1966, while Biden was still a graduate student, he wed Hunter.
Between 1966 and 1968, the newlyweds allegedly lived together in a first-floor apartment in Syracuse. At the neighborhood elementary school, Biden was a pupil and Hunter was a teacher. They were well-liked by the locals, along with their German shepherd.
The Bidens allegedly hosted Sunday dinners, Biden loved cars (unsurprising given his father’s occupation), and he owned a green 1967 Stingray Corvette that was a wedding present from his father. Even though it appears that he traveled around Syracuse in it back then with friends, Biden still owned that car in 2020.
As a community defender, Biden was also. As stated in the article, Biden “appeared out of nowhere to shout down the bullies when a neighborhood kid was attacked for stuttering. “A young boy named Kevin Coyne remembers the future president going after the youngsters who were making fun of him. Coyne stated, “He lit into them,” adding that he was unaware that Biden himself stammered.
Following his graduation from law school in New York, Joe Biden relocated to Delaware and worked “as an attorney for the next four years,” according to History. Then, in 1970, Biden decided to participate in his first political campaign. For two years, he was a member of the New Castle County Council after being elected. Biden faced Republican incumbent J. before turning 30. Caleb Boggs is competing for the U.
S.
Senate.
“.
Biden won in an unexpected triumph, but calamity struck Biden’s personal life soon after. His wife, two children, and daughter, according to US News, were en route to buy the family a Christmas tree. A “tractor-trailer plowed into their station wagon while they were traveling,” killing Biden’s “wife and 13-month-old daughter. ” Both of Biden’s boys survived but were badly injured. “Biden was sworn into the U. S. Senate at his sons’ hospital bedsides,” according to his White House profile.
In an interview, Francis Valeo, the Secretary of the Senate at the time, revealed how Biden was sworn in. “He refused to come down to be sworn in during the regular session. ” “He said he couldn’t leave the kids,” Valeo observed. He was then given permission to travel to Wilmington for the ceremony. Valeo recalled Biden saying a few things and claiming that “he wasn’t at all sure he was going to run again, that he might be just a one-term senator. ”.
Joe Biden unexpectedly discovered love while still grieving the devastating deaths of his wife and children. “My brother said, ‘There’s this woman — you’ll like her, Joe,’ he said in a video for the Democratic National Convention. ” So I called her, and she had a date that night. But her initial response was much funnier.
“I wasn’t into the whole dating thing.
” But when I met Jill, I instantly fell in love with her,” Joe explained.
Joe revealed that his two sons were likewise smitten with Jill when they began dating.
He remembered his sons telling him, “We think it’s time we married Jill.
” Joe felt the same way and proposed to Jill.
But it took a few tries for Joe to get the desired result.
He asked her to marry him five times before she eventually answered, “Okay.
”.
According to Harper’s Bazaar, Joe Biden married Jill Biden in 1977 and had their daughter, future activist Ashley Biden, in 1981.
Jill stated in a video for the Democratic National Convention that following the birth of Ashley, “our family was complete.
” Biden was part of a historic Supreme Court nomination that same year.
President Ronald Reagan then suggested Sandra Day O’Connor for a seat on the Supreme Court.
After a 99-to-0 vote in the Senate, she became the Supreme Court’s first female justice.
In a speech to his colleagues before the vote, Biden “said he “enthusiastically” supported the nomination because Judge O’Connor had demonstrated legal skill, moral character, and judicial temperament,” according to the New York Times.
“That is all I have to ask,” Biden continued.
He also inquired whether any of the visitors or “tourists,” in the room had anything to say about the nomination.
Joe Biden has amazing political qualities to be elected to the Senate at such a young age.
According to Time, Biden “was already seen as White House material” when he was appointed in 1972.
By 1987, Biden had stated his intention to run for President in the 1988 election.
“He was considered by quite a few people at the time as a bright new hope, different from other Democrats.
” As one of seven Democratic contenders known as the “Seven Dwarfs,” Biden received a mixed reaction from voters.
However, a plagiarism issue effectively ended his chances of being nominated.
Biden was caught without referencing British politician Neil Kinnock’s speech.
The press also discovered “previous instances in which Biden had failed to properly cite Humphrey and Robert Kennedy.
” Finally, it was revealed that “Biden failed a course at Syracuse University Law School because he wrote a paper that used five pages from a published law-review article without quotation marks or a proper footnote.
”.
After the incident, Biden stepped out of the campaign, but his problems were far from ending.
The senator soon after “had a headache that turned out to be a brain aneurysm.
” Following surgery, doctors discovered another aneurysm, which necessitated surgery once more.
“There is no doubt — the doctors have no doubt — that if I had stayed in the race, I would have died,” Biden said.
As the 1990s progressed, Joe Biden returned to his political origins and concentrated on the Senate.
According to the Office of the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, he was re-elected as a Senator of Delaware.
Biden was also the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he had held since 1987.
As a result of this significant role, the senator introduced a progressive bill.
“In 1990, I introduced the Violence Against Women Act.
” “We started out believing that exposing the toll of domestic violence on American families was the only way to change the culture,” Biden told Time.
Biden urged men and women to relate their heartbreaking stories of domestic violence and abuse in order to persuade the other senators.
The act took over four years to become a reality, but it was finally signed into law in 1994 by President Bill Clinton.
And Biden described it as his “proudest legislative accomplishment.
”.
During this time, the senator was also extensively interested in foreign policy.
For example, the Los Angeles Times stated in 1991 that “he had voted against authorization for the Persian Gulf War.
” Biden also demonstrated bravery on the international stage.
During a business trip, Biden met Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia’s president at the time.
According to The Washington Post, Biden “called him a ‘damned war criminal’” in front of him.
One consistency in Joe Biden’s years as a senator was his method of getting to work.
Biden would travel the Amtrak train from Delaware to Washington D.C. every day and then return by rail at night.
Biden began in 1972, and after decades of the same pattern, he got the moniker “Amtrak Joe.
”.
“I began making the 110-mile commute shortly after I was sworn in as a Senator,” Biden wrote for the Huffington Post.
It was the only way I could have become a Senator.
After losing their mother and sister in a car accident a month before, I needed to be able to return home and spend evenings with my two sons.
”.
When it was his birthday on a workday, Biden told an adorable story.
Biden’s daughter was planning a party, but the senator needed to be in Washington, D.C. , for a vote.
According to Biden, he left early in the evening, “boarded the train, and my daughter was standing there on the middle platform in Wilmington.
” “She and my wife sang ‘Happy Birthday,’ I blew out the candle, took a piece of cake, opened her gift, kissed her,” I said before hopping back on the train to vote.
Biden traveled the train for 36 years, finally getting off when he was appointed Vice President.
Biden stated at the time, “I’ve taken more than 7,000 round trips on Amtrak over the course of my career.
”.
“On April 25, 2019, Biden announced his candidacy for President of the United States,” the official White House website states.
“Biden’s candidacy was built from the start around three pillars: the battle for our nation’s soul, the need to rebuild our middle class — the backbone of our country, and a call for unity, to act as One America,” the website continued.
And his effort to put his approach into action means facing off against the incumbent candidate, President Donald Trump.
The 2020 election results were one of the most tense times in political history.
According to the Pew Research Center, voter turnout increased by 7 percent compared to the 2016 election.
In addition, “66 percent of U.
S.
adult citizens” voted in the 2020 election.
Biden won the election, prompting Trump to make unfounded charges of voter fraud.
It took Trump nearly a month to admit that Biden would be taking over as president.
Biden took office following an emotional triumph and had to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
“In the days and weeks before entering office, he said his goal was 100 million vaccinations” in his first 100 days, according to NBC.
Biden exceeded his initial goal and changed his plan to “200 million vaccinations in his first 100 days.
” With one week till the 100-day milestone, Biden fulfilled his target of 200 million immunizations. “‘How did you come up with this number?’ “Those were the first words I said to Joe when he called me on a Saturday in 1975,” Jill Biden wrote on Instagram. Joe requested Jill to skip the date and go out with him instead, as she described in the DNC tape. “I called and told the guy that I had a friend visiting from out of town and went out with Joe,” she explained.
