History of Joe Biden

you need to be able to answer the tough questions I guarantee you Joe Biden was in huge trouble it was the 2020 Democratic primaries and he was miles behind we took a gut punch in Iowa the whole process took a gut punch his campaign was already counting how much money it needed to pay out staffers when he dropped out Biden had been here before in 1987 there'll be other presidential campaign 2007 2015 Joe Biden needed a miracle and he got one in South Carolina I know Joe we know Joe but most importantly Joe Knows us thanks to that endorsement from Congressman James kurn Biden won the South Carolina primary in a landslide 3 days after South Carolina he dominated super Tuesday he went from being on the verge of dropping out to being the nominee in less than a week just 8 months after that fateful day Joe Biden was elected president it was the culmination of a journey that spanned more than 50 years one that's included unspeakable tragedy and bitter disappointment so so who is Joe Biden how did he go from being the youngest Senator to the oldest president in this video The Many Lives of Joe [Music] Biden Joseph robinet Biden Jr was born to Jee and Joseph Senor on November 20th 1942 in Scranton Pennsylvania Joe's childhood wasn't always easy but it was happy but there was just one thing he had but didn't want one day in Middle School Joe was asked to read a story aloud to the class instead of supporting him his teacher mocked him she imitated his stutter Joe could hide his self-consciousness about lots of things but not that kids at school called him Dash because it sounded like he was talking in Morse code instead of seeing the young man they just saw someone to make fun of it ate him up inside eventually Joe beat his stutter by reciting passages from literature and learning to anticipate what people would ask before they did it so he could get in and ask them about it first great practice for his future career Joe beat his stutter but he'd never forget the shame and embarrassment it caused him it established a dominant theme in his life a belief that he didn't get the respect he deserved After High School Biden went to the University of Delaware he played football worked as a lifeguard and then in his junior year Joe met a girl her name was nilia Hunter and within a year they were married now that he had a wife it was time for Joe to get serious he went to law school but it was a disaster he plagiarized a law review article for a paper and in order to get out of repeating the class Joe said he didn't know how to do proper citations because he wasn't in the class often enough to learn in the end Joe scraped through he graduated 76th in a class of 85 it was a forgettable beginning to what looked like it was going to be a forgettable career Joe and nilia moved to the suburbs they had a baby who was named after his father but who everyone called B then they had another boy Hunter and a girl Naomi it looked like Joe's life was laid out in front of him Decades of boring middleclass life awaited but behind the Bland exterior was a burning ambition to be more than just a lawyer the first time he met Nalia's mom he told her that one day he'd be president he woried the kennedies so in 1972 when he was just 29 he took the first step toward that goal and ran for US Senate the odds were stacked against him the incumbent Caleb bogs was a veteran and a popular reformer Governor how could Joe Biden who only ran because more serious candidates thought that they had no chance of winning even put up a fight despite the long odds Biden had two things working in in his favor the first is that bogs didn't want to run again Richard Nixon had personally come down to Delaware to beg him bogs relented but said he wouldn't campaign very hard he didn't think he needed to Joe Biden's second Advantage was his youth Biden crisscross the state usually with nalia and the kids by his side and his campaign ran newspaper ads with slogans about issues that resonated with the public Caleb B's generation dreamed of conquering polio Joe Biden's generation dreams of conquering heroin the message was clear bog was the past Biden was the future but the future could be scary so Biden searched for the center ground he opposed marijuana legalization but said police should focus more on heroin he was against the Vietnam War but opposed amnesty for draft Dodgers and most controversially Biden also opposed busing the practice of transporting students to schools outside of their local districts to make schools more racially diverse not everyone lik the strategy one local column said that in November you can either vote for the oldest young Democrat or the youngest old Republican but it worked on Election Day Richard Nixon won the state of Delaware by 20 points and in a major upset Joe Biden beat Caleb bogs by 3,000 votes the Young Unknown who had to wait until after the election to turn old enough to actually be allowed to serve in the senate had won an unwinnable race but then less than a month after Joe Biden achieved his biggest Triumph he'd suffer his biggest tragedy you knew you just felt it in your bones something bad happened and I knew I don't know how I knew but the call said my wife was dead my daughter was dead and I wasn't sure how my sons were going to make it for the first time in my life I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide not because they were deranged not because they were nuts because they've been to the top of the mountain and they just knew in their heart they'd never get there again there will come a day I promise you and you parents as well when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye for years Biden would talk about how the driver who killed his first wife and baby daughter drank his lunch on that fateful day but as much as he wanted it to be true because maybe it would allow him to make some kind of sense out of what happened it wasn't it was just a terrible tragedy Biden didn't know how he could go on he wanted to resign but he was worried about what would happen to Bo and Hunter if they saw their dad swallowed up by grief so he agreed to stick it out for 6 months and was sworn in as a US senator beside Bose's hospital bed and when it was time to go to Washington he did it his way for the next 36 years until he became vice president he commuted between Washington and Delaware so he could be home every night Biden valued his relationships with his family above everything else and he approached his new job with the same mindset in a town full of Ivy League graduates he wasn't going to win on Raw brain power but he could win by making friends remember this is a guy who during his Senate campaign was called the youngest old Republican compromise wasn't a bad thing it was the way to actually get things done but this created a dilemma could Joe Biden be the ultimate Washington Insider while also being a total outsider could he afford to skip the fancy cocktail parties so he could tuck his boys into bed at night he didn't know but he knew he wanted to try because for Biden relationships were an anchor in deeply uncertain times Not only was he processing a huge amount of grief but he arrived in Washington during a pivotal moment in the world order will be out of Vietnam by the end of June about 25 seconds left in the round now you come to me to say I'm cor give me Justice Supreme Court today legalized abortions I know full well the responsibilities that await me as I enter the door of number 10 the Watergate scandal broke wide open today the 1970s was a decade of the energy crisis stagflation labor Mutiny Urban Decay and a cold war that looked like it might get hot it seemed like every night Americans watch stories about riots strikes and serial killers lines for gash stretch for Miles crisis at home threatened the National Security of the US and its allies against this backdrop Joe Biden kept his head down and worked hard on small things that people cared about like consumer protection crime and campaign Finance reform he made friends on both sides of the aisle segregationist Southern Democrats liberals and pro bus Republicans all found they could work with him that determination to always find common ground is the reason why Less Than 3 years after he was elected Joe Biden was appointed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee it was a big step up in terms of prestige and influence all of a sudden Joe Biden was one of the leading voices in Washington when it came to foreign policy his actual beliefs were highly conventional he thought the United States was the world's greatest Force for good and that communism was the biggest threat to freedom but at the same time he thought the US and Soviet Union should find common ground on important issues like Arms Control in an unstable era Biden's predictability was a feature not a bug but not all the change that was happening was bad 2 and a half years after his wife's death Joe's brother brother set him up on a date with Jill Jacobs a senior studying English at the University of Delaware despite a 9-year age Gap the two hit it off Jill was fascinated by the young senator who was nothing like the guys she was used to dating after their first date she told her mom that she'd finally met a gentleman now that they were older Bo and Hunter started asking their dad if he was ever going to get married again Jill didn't say yes the first time Joe asked her but eventually Jill and Joe got married in June of 1977 after a short honeymoon it was back to work Joe had an election to win it turned out that winning was much easier the second time this time around Biden won nearly 60% of the votes in every single County with the confidence that only winning reelection can bring Biden began playing a leading role on the Foreign Relations Committee he flew to Moscow to try and save the salt to Arms Control treaty which was on the verge of collapse as the 1980s dawned Joe Biden was finally getting the respect he thought he deserved and the good news kept coming in 1981 after Ronald Reagan was elected President Biden was appointed to the Senate Judiciary committee it was another big promotion the Judiciary Committee oversees the Department of Justice and considers nominations for the Supreme Court helped by his role on the Judiciary Committee Biden's public profile went to the next level he went to some of the cocktail parties he devoided in earlier years and became active on the Democratic party speaking circuit and after he became chair of the Judiciary Committee an idea started circulating inside Joe Biden's Mind by now he'd been a senator for 15 years he was respected by Democrats and Republicans alike it was now time Biden believed to Su the dream he told Nalia's mom about it was time to run for president in a crowded field Joe Biden looked like one of the strongest candidates for the presidential nomination of a Democratic party that was desperate to win back the White House after eight years of Ronald Reagan he seemed to tick all the boxes he was a high-profile senator who knew how to raise money Baby Boomers saw reasonable moderate young professionals saw Statesmen and Americans saw someone who survived tragedy Biden announced his candidacy in June of 1987 at the Wilmington train station so it's your help that I seek first as today I announc my candidacy for president of the United States of America in language that was deliberately crafted to remind people of John F Kennedy he said that it was time to rekindle the fire of idealism in our society the campaign announcement was as good as it ever got Biden couldn't decide on a single campaign message was he the voice of a new generation like JFK a foreign policy expert environmentalist educator he was being pulled in too many different directions at once and it wouldn't take long for him to crack under the pressure what law school did you attend and where did you place in that class and the other question is I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do the death blow for Biden's campaign came when he gave a speech that was plagiarized from the UK labor party leader my mistake from there things quickly unraveled the media and Biden's candidates for the nomination found examples of him reusing passages from speeches given by JFK and Robert Kennedy I did not know that was a Robert Kennedy quote they discovered his plagiarism incident from law school maybe if Biden had been leading the polls it wouldn't have mattered so much but he was already floundering and these new controversies proved too much they were taking a toll on his health his reputation and his family barely 4 months after he joined the race he pulled out Biden's failed presidential campaign was deeply embarrassing it laid bare all his weaknesses his arrogance his insecurities but here's the twist that disastrous campaign it probably saved his life less than four months after he withdrew from the race Biden woke up on the floor of his hotel room he'd been unconscious for 5 hours couldn't move his legs those headaches he'd fed with Tylenol on the campaign Trail had turned into a brain aneurysm Biden's prognosis was initially so Bleak that a priest arrived to deliver the last rights before Jill even made it to the hospital it took months of surgeries complications and even a second aneurysm until Biden recovered it was the price he paid for months of campaigning while maintaining his Senate duties but ironically had he been a better presidential candidate in 1987 he probably wouldn't be alive to be president today when he returned to the Senate Joe Biden told the first crowd he saw that he'd been given a second chance at life he planned to take it after the embarrassment of his presidential bid and his near-death experience Biden needed to rebuild his reputation it wouldn't take long for an opportunity to come up in 1991 President George HW Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to replace THD Marshall the first African-American Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas seasoned Now by more experience on the bench fits my description of the best man at the right time the nomination process was controversial right from the start Thomas was a staunch conservative especially on hot button issues like abortion and women's groups and civil rights organizations didn't want him on the court and then everything blew up an FBI report which detailed sexual harassment allegations against Thomas by Anita Hill a law professor who' worked with him was leaked to the media televised hearings were reopened and right there in in the middle of it all was the chair of the Judiciary Committee Joe Biden you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you got the drama captivated America the accusations against Thomas were lurid but the Republicans were going to do whatever it took to get Thomas across the line and in his attempt to run a fair hearing people started saying that Joe Biden was running a process which was unfair to Anita Hill the hearings made a huge impression on women around the country Clarence Thomas ended up being confirmed to the Senate 52 to 48 and Thomas remains on the US Supreme Court to this day this entire proceeding is ended years later when it was brought up by his opponents in the 2020 primaries Biden said he regretted the way he ran the confirmation hearing but back then he didn't his ability to compromise with almost everyone was the thing that got him to where he was chair of the Judiciary Committee Member of the Foreign Relations Committee potential presidential candidate he wasn't going to risk throwing that away to appease his critics besides he had bigger fish to fry because less than 2 years after nominating Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Supreme Court George HW Bush was gone and his replacement was a very different kind of politician this election is about change change in our party change in our leadership change in our nation Bill Clinton wasn't your average Democrat he ran ads attacking Bush for raising taxes he promised to end welfare as we know it and he wasn't afraid to call out social issues in America's cities Joe Biden looked at Bill Clinton a charismatic young Democrat who many people compared to a Republican and saw himself so the seasoned political veteran and energetic young president teamed up the other big piece of legislation on Capitol Hill tonight is the crime bill and the fear it provokes are crippling our society the crime bill before Congress gives you a chance to do something about it a chance to be tough and smart the most significant Federal effort to deal with violent crime in America that has ever been undertaken the 1994 crime bill was one of the most important pieces of legislation of Bill Clinton's presidency and one of the most controversial it was the result of years of work by Biden and other leading Democrats gladly endorsed by Clinton to address Rising crime in the early 1990s violent crime rates in the United States were about twice as high as today the TV news was Rife with stories of gang violence home invasions and crack cocaine Americans were scared Democrats were concerned about crime and Joe Biden was definitely concerned about crime in 1989 he criticized George HW Bush for not going far enough in the War on Drugs quite frankly the president's plan's not Tough Enough bold enough or imaginative enough to meet the crisis at hand but Republicans had been hammering Democrats as soft on crime for decades the crime bill was Bill Clinton and Joe Biden's chance to turn the tables it wasn't even that controversial I mean Bernie Sanders voted for it but in recent years it's been linked to mass incarceration especially of racial minorities it's kind of hard to say if the crime Bill did what it was supposed to do VI crime peaked in 1991 a couple of years before it was even written but politically it was a big failure this is one of the most profound days in American history we didn't do what the people wanted us to do I'm must certainly bear my share of responsibility and I accept that Republicans now are beginning to talk openly about taking control of the house and the Senate just two months after the crime bill was signed into law the Democrats suffered a massive defeat in the midterm elections Republicans gained control over both the House and Senate for the first time in more than 40 years for Joe Biden it was a reminder that playing nice with Republicans was a risky strategy and now as one of the most senior Democrats in Washington he had a big Target on his back since he was first elected to the senate in 1972 Joe Biden had seen off challenges from Farmers businessmen and prosecutors none of them got close to the most famous man in Delaware but in 1996 Biden got a different kind of scare two weeks before election day staffers working for his opponent started asking voters if they knew that Joe Biden had recently sold his house for twice its market value to the executive of a local credit card company in response Biden provided the local newspaper with evidence that the house was sold for market value on Election Day he won a fifth Senate term with 60% of the vote end of story right wrong because his opponent was actually on to something Biden did sell his house to a credit card company executive on its own that wouldn't be much but The Story Goes deeper and it reveals tells a lot about Joe Biden and where he came from the executive who bought his house worked for a company called MBNA and before they were bought by Bank of America in 2006 MBNA was one of America's biggest credit card companies they were based in Wilmington Delaware the place the Biden's moved when Joe was a boy that was no coincidence because Delaware is the best place in America to register a business don't believe me 2/3 of the Fortune 500 are Incorporated there there's a building in Downtown Wilmington which is the official legal address for more than a quarter million businesses Delaware is a great place to register a business because you can do it anonymously and because corporate taxes are ultra low and companies like MBNA wanted to keep it that way that's why one of their Executives bought Joe Biden's house an act which just happened to help Joe out of a little Financial Jam he was in it's why they donated over $62,000 to Biden for the election campaign and it's why just a few months after the election MBNA hired Hunter Biden who was fresh out of law school as an executive why did a credit card company do so many favors for Joe Biden simple they expected something in return companies like MBNA donate money in the expectation that when they need it their guy will come out and support them on a crucial vote and maybe use their influence to swing a few more votes and after 25 years in the Senate there was no one better at twisting arms than Joe Biden I'm not saying anything illegal happened here Biden's relationship with MBNA was actually the perfect illustration of how influence works both in Washington and Delaware one of the first times people outside of Delaware heard of Biden was when as a young Senator he appeared on a a political Chat Show talking about campaign Finance reform 25 years later that same man had found someone to buy his home for a good price and give his son a good job in the process and MBNA got someone in their corner all for less than one executive salary in 2005 the financial services industry including MBNA strongly supported a piece of legislation that made it harder for people to discharge their debts Republicans introduced the bill but it took Joe Biden who had already pushed to reform bankruptcy law in 2000 and 2001 to make it bipartisan he voted for the final bill in the Senate it wasn't a good look for middle class Joe but if he thought it was a weakness he didn't show it as George W Bush's second term Drew to a close Biden was thinking about running for president again every week coffins with American flags draped over them were being flown back from Iraq and Afghanistan Joe Biden knew the tragedy of losing a family member of losing a child he believed he could Forge a personal connection to voters and he believed Americans would reward him for his experience Joe Biden thought America needed someone like Joe Biden he'd learned from the the mistakes he made in 1988 he wouldn't make them again this time things would be different except there was one guy Joe Biden wasn't counting on now even as we speak there are those who are preparing to divide us the Spin Masters the negative ad pedlers who embrace the politics of anything goes well I say to them tonight there is not a liberal America and a conservative America there is the United States of America in a speech that lasted just 20 minutes delivered in the middle of a 2004 presidential campaign a young Barack Obama changed American politics and in the process he destroyed any hope Joe Biden had of being elected president four years later politically the two men had a lot in common but their backgrounds highlighted just how different they were one was the effortlessly cool college professor from Chicago while the other was the striver from Delaware who'd scraped and struggled for more than 35 years in Washington and picked up tons of baggage along the way way Biden was actually in the room the night Obama delivered his famous keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention he gave his own speech two nights later but even this is an unflattering comparison for Biden Obama's speech has 6 million views on YouTube while you can't even easily find Biden's for all the hype Obama got from his speech he wasn't actually the FrontRunner for the 2008 Democratic primaries neither was Joe Biden Hillary Clinton was she was seen as both the experienced Pair of Hands that the country needed to steer its way out of the mess in Iraq and the continuation of Bill popular presidency but she had as much baggage as Biden so he tried to get the campaign on his terms Iraq emerged as the centerpiece of Biden's campaign he outlined an ambitious some said unworkable plan to split the country along religious lines it made sense Iraq was a mess and foreign policy was Joe Biden's thing but it never cut through sure people were worried about the war in Iraq but they were also worried about a ton of other things Joe Biden overrated the importance of foreign policy and when he did talk about domestic policy he sounded more like a Senator than a president in Waiting compare that to Obama whose story and speaking style made people dream of a better future after finishing a distant fifth in the Iowa caucus Biden withdrew from the race he was 65 years old he'd run for president twice and failed twice it looked like the dream he told Nalia's mom about would never come true but just because he wouldn't become president didn't mean he wouldn't make it to the White House after a bruising contest with Hillary Clinton Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee but a callow nominee needed an experience running mate to help him manage Congress and foreign policy and convince skeptical voters in Middle America that they could vote for a guy named Barack one night not long after the primaries when Biden was on the train home to Wilmington Obama called him and asked if he'd consider being vetted for the job of Vice President Biden said that although it was an honor to be considered he had to say no he was a creature of the Senate besides there was a lot he could accomplish as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee Obama persisted until eventually Joe agreed to think it over there are two schools of thought about the vice presidency one is that it's a road to nowhere Benjamin Franklin suggested that the VP be given the title of his Superfluous Excellency the second is that vice president makes you the Natural Choice to be your party's next candidate Biden's heart told him it was the latter but his head told him it was the former he wanted to be president but the guy who was actually up for the job had asked him to serve so when Obama asked him again Biden said yes it's a good thing he did not in Generations as w Street absorbed the number of body blows it took today the American Financial system is rocked to its foundation as top Wall Street institutions topple under a mountain of De the collapse of Leman Brothers in September of 2008 triggered the global financial crisis but it also helped Barack Obama become president before the collapse the polls between him and his opponent John McCain were neck and neck but that soon changed media coverage became increasingly critical of McCain Who as a republican was seen as supporting the deregulation that was widely blamed for through the crisis Obama ended up winning easily and in the process he made history if there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible who still wonders if the dream of our Founders is alive in our time who still questions the power of our democracy tonight is your answer for Joe Biden November 4th 2008 was a Bittersweet day becoming vice president took years of effort and sacrifice but ultimately he was a supporting character in someone else's story for someone who had constantly battled to win respect it was hard to take still Biden knew he had no time to reflect on what might have been the country was in crisis and it required all his experience hundreds of thousands of people were losing their jobs every month Biden was happy to help out wherever he was needed he just had one request to be the last guy in the room whenever Obama made a major decision just days into his president presidency Obama gave Biden the job of overseeing the distribution of the $800 billion stimulus Bill both men knew that Republicans would jump on any chance to attack democrats for wasteful spending Biden stepped up big time he traveled around the country to check on projects in person and worked the phones with Mayors and governors in the end only about 1% of the stimulus was lost to waste or fraud a result largely due to Biden it wasn't just demestic policy Obama trusted Biden on foreign policy so much he almost deferred to him Biden visited Iraq eight times in Obama's first term and was an influential voice in the internal debates about what to do in Afghanistan his advice wasn't always heated he opposed intervention in Libya and warned Obama against the bin Laden raid but he was always in the room Biden thrived as vice president because it was a job that showcased all of his strengths as a politician without exposing his weaknesses he got to make deals and slap backs and didn't have to do many press conferences plus it made him popular even if it was hard to see how the semi-ironic popularity he got from being Diamond Joe could translate into becoming president despite his reservations being vice president was in a lot of ways the job Joe Biden was born to do but work never came before family which is why what happened next was so hard to accept Bo Biden followed in his dad's footsteps he went to the same high school and the same law school and eventually he went into politics just like Joe Father and Son were unusually close Joe would tell anyone who'd listen that Bo had all of his best qualities and none of his Worst by 2013 Bo was Attorney General of Delaware and he just announced he was going to run for governor but not long after he started getting really bad headaches after Consulting a doctor Bo got a diagnosis no one wanted to hear Bo had an aggressive brain tumor no one took the news harder than Joe what made it worse was that he was too busy to care for his boy the way he wanted the United States was facing difficult foreign policy challenges in Ukraine and the Middle East given the huge amount of stress he was under it seemed incredible that Joe Biden was still thinking about running for president but it only looked that way if you didn't actually know him because because Biden was still driven by his ambition and his thirst for the respect he felt he'd always deserved but never gotten if there were no second acts in American life then Joe Biden was attempting something truly remarkable a third the truth is he'd never stopped dreaming of being president and never stopped believing he could win in 1988 he was a bad candidate and in 2008 he was a good candidate beaten by a once in a generation candidate but in 2016 he knew that his likely rival Hillary Clinton was as flawed as he was however Bo just kept on getting sicker and sicker Joe realized he couldn't be everywhere at once and that there was actually only one place he wanted to be Joe committed the walk to Bose's hospital room to memory he did everything for Bo the best care the best doctors even experimental treatments but it wasn't enough Bo Biden passed away on the evening of May 30th 2015 he left behind a wife two kids and a grieving dad who now had to confront yet more tragedy Joe's diary entry from that day was just one line long my God my boy my beautiful boy tragedy had come for Joe Biden once again and now he needed to decide what to do Bo had urged him to run but other people in Joe's life including Barack Obama didn't think it was a great idea he was overwhelmed by grief and despite his own burning ambition he was a team player he didn't want a drawn out nomination process that would hurt the Democrats in 2016 eventually regretfully he announced he wouldn't run for president in 2016 B is our inspiration unfortunately I believe R of time the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination despite his regret Biden and most of the country thought that the nomination was in safe hands with Hillary Clinton she'd emerged from a tough contest against Bernie Sanders she was smart and experienced she was highly qualified she was up against Donald Trump for crying out loud for most observers the outcome seemed fairly certain you probably remember what happened next you know it is uh it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country because you'd be in jail secretary Clinton I had the weirdest weirdest dream last night remember that guy who used to host The Apprentice I dreamed we elected him president this was a white lash against a changing country it was a white lash against a black president Hillary Clinton has called Donald Trump to concede the race January 20th 2017 will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation [Music] [Applause] again Hillary Clinton lost what many people considered to be an unusable election all of a sudden the progress that had been made under the OB Obama presidency the economic Recovery Healthcare reform the fight against counterterrorism was all at risk Joe Biden felt the loss more than most he' chosen not to run because of Bose's death and because people he trusted told him it was Hillary's turn and now the most important job in the country maybe the entire world belonged to someone he thought was totally unqualified to do it moments of Crisis often brought out the best in Joe Biden he believed the election of Donald Trump counted as a crisis and it gave him an energy not many people knew he still had he first floated the idea of running again barely a week after Trump was elected but Joe Biden announced he was running in 2020 like only he could he accidentally blurted it out during a speech I have the most Progressive record of anybody running for the UN if anybody who would run he wouldn't formally announce he was running until a month later but by then everyone knew Biden's campaign team was composed of his most trusted advisers including his sister Valerie who helped him get elected to the Senate way back in 1972 almost immediately Biden was declared the front runner for the Democratic nomination but he knew he'd been in this position before and failed Biden was too arrogant in 1988 and Powerless in the face of the Obama phenomenon in 2008 so in 2020 he made a more modest pitch Biden knew that lots of Americans were angry they were angry about politics about the economy about the response to covid-19 so instead of Fanning the Flames he pitched himself as the boring candidate he would be the anti-trump the safe hands at the wheel who could steer the country away from chaos and toward stability ironically one of the first people to recognize the appeal of this p was Donald Trump in a weird way it was a compliment because it showed Trump recognized the threat Biden posed Biden was deeply offended by Trump's presidency and its consequences for the country and he was worried that the rest of the people being touted as Democratic nominees didn't have what it took to win the primary debates gave Biden's younger opponents the opportunity to attack him for his record all of Joe Biden's baggage was brought up and debated in prime time it was a reminder that in politics it's better to not have a track record the first few states were brutal for Biden Iowa New Hampshire Nevada he was Miles off the pace all of the old doubts about his ability to connect with voters resurfaced and then South Carolina happened my buddy Jim clber you brought me back after South Carolina the rest of the democratic field melted away within days lots of Bernie supporters thought it was a conspiracy but the truth is much simpler Biden won because the relationships he'd spent decades investing in paid off over the years Biden had built relationships with most of the candidates who stepped aside Amy kachar the senator from Minnesota remember the time he complimented a speech she gave during her first year on the job Democratic Party leaders and voters decided Joe Biden was more likely to achieve their ultimate goal beating Donald Trump Biden accepted the nomination in a Milwaukee Convention Center that was almost entirely empty because of covid-19 this is our moment this is our mission despite making a promise to donors early on in the campaign that nothing would fundamentally change by the time he won the nomination Biden was singing a different tune according to a senior Aid to Bernie Sanders Biden told Bernie he wanted to be the most Progressive president since FDR Biden could see that four years under President Trump had made the country more polarized and many Americans more desperate for radical policies he was smart enough to know that lots of Voters actually preferred more ambitious plans put forward by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren but voters were also terrified those candidates would lose to Trump they were the right messages delivered by the wrong messenger so Biden just like he'd been doing for his entire career calibrated his message for his audience sometimes it was his fellow senators or credit card companies this time it was the American public the contest between Biden and Trump didn't exactly showcase the best the country had to offer each candidate had lots of material to work with about the other Trump claimed Biden was suffering from dementia and alleged that members of his family including his son Hunter had personally profited from Biden's time as Vice President Biden who often campaigned either online or at political rallies where people stayed in their cars attacked Trump on his record as president it was a weird hostile campaign waged during a weird hostile time in US history but at least the election result would provide a definitive answer right frankly we did win this election we did win this we want all voting to St and the senior federal official says the FBI is in possession of the hunter Biden laptop in question we don't have a final Declaration of Victory yet but the numbers tell us it's clear we're going to win this race Donald Trump the 45th president of the United States will be denied a second turn that has not happened since 1992 contrary to one of Joe Biden's fundamental beliefs about politics 2020 showed that most Americans didn't crave Unity they wanted their guys to win when the dust settled he and Cala Harris had received more votes than any presidential candidate in history more than 50 years after he told Nalia's mom he wanted to be president he'd finally done it if only Bo was there to see him do it Joe Biden commuted between Wilmington and Washington DC almost every day for 36 years but his journey from being the kid with a stutter to a freshman senator sworn in from his son's hospital bed to being the oldest ever US president has been an epic one and it's been defined by three things family tragedy and a constant struggle for respect and his response to all three has been to fight he's fought for his family he's fought to overcome tragedy and he's fought for respect Joe Biden isn't a remarkable guy he'd be the first to tell you that but his story sure is to learn more about his presidential opponent Donald Trump watch this video next thanks a lot

Channel: John Coogan

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Length: 36min 26sec (2186 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 28 2024