The FRONTLINE Interviews
Jeanne Marie Laskas
Correspondent, GQ
Jeanne Marie Laskas is a correspondent for GQ and a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine.
The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Jim Gilmore on July 14, 2020. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Biden’s Childhood in Delaware
Let’s start with his growing up, where he grew up, what the community was like.You visited the house with him.Talk about his childhood, his home, the racial makeup of the neighborhood back then, the Irish working class—
Catholic.
Take us to that.What was the home like?What was the Biden home like?And where was it, and what was it like?
His childhood home in Wilmington, Delaware—the family moved to Wilmington when Biden was about 10.And it was a middle-class neighborhood, probably the homes built in maybe the ’50s, a small white house with black shutters.Just a really pretty little setting, nothing fancy at all.The barbecue pit out front.Biden wanted to point out his dad was very proud of that.And the neighborhood was—this is Irish Catholic, pretty much working-class.
Wilmington has a big Black population.Where was this compared to the downtown areas and the areas where more of the Black population was living?
Well, this is really the suburbs, the suburbs of Wilmington.We’re not directly in the city.So you had a feeling of outskirts, but not far.It was—this was not a fancy neighborhood what—by any means.
Tell me about the family a little bit.The dad had hard times.He had good times.He came back because of that. ...
He did some cleaning furnaces; then he became a car salesman, a used car salesman.Talk about the family a little bit.What were the dynamics of the family?
Well, the family was—we—let’s see.Biden had two brothers and a sister, Valerie, and an uncle whom—that he called Uncle Boo-Boo; that was his nickname.The boys all slept in one room.They had—he joked that they had a bureau with four drawers, and everybody got a drawer.And Valerie got her own room.And he said, “But she deserved it.”
But the interesting thing about that dynamic in, among the brothers and the uncle, his uncle was really important to him in ways that were sort of a cautionary tale.His uncle lived with them.He had had a bad stutter all through his life, his uncle, and never overcame it, and had a very bad drinking problem and never really got a life together.And that affected Biden tremendously, as a cautionary tale.
Like, "I’m not—I have to do something about my stutter," which was significant, which I never knew about, really.But it came up a lot during my time with him, that he needed to do something about that so he wouldn’t end up like his uncle, a tragic figure.And that was formative.
Biden’s Struggle with Stuttering
The stuttering is an important part of what we’re going to be talking about.Uncle Boo-Boo didn’t marry; he didn’t have a very good job; he was an alcoholic.What did Joe learn from this?And how did he react to the fact of his uncle, who was very close to him, he lived in the same bedroom as them, how important was it?
It was really important in that Biden would pay attention to the fact that—it was obvious to him, even as a 10-year-old boy that this man had a problem that he wasn’t overcoming, and his whole life was affected by it.I mean, really, he turned into an alcoholic, a significant one, can’t work, never marries, is sort of stunted in his growth.And Biden understands it is because of the stutter, because his uncle never overcame it, never figured out how to overcome it.And Biden was determined to overcome it and practice.And he had all kinds of ways that he would work on this himself, kind of in the quiet of his—well, in the front steps.At one point he was putting pebbles in his mouth and shouting at a wall.He thought maybe that would work.He had all these things he was trying.It seemed like it was a really lonely battle.And it was like watching his uncle never having figured it out, that he was going to figure this out.He wasn’t going to turn out like that.
Reciting things to a mirror—did he talk about that?
He would recite things to a mirror, and he would take things that he had in his life—like he had a paper route, as a young boy would have a paper route.And he used that as an occasion to practice talking to people.And the way that he would do that would be, he would memorize things, because it was very difficult for him to just even have a conversation with someone.So he would memorize things about the neighbors—this neighbor here is a Yankees fan.He would know the box scores so that he could go to the guy, and he would recite it ahead of time.“How about that game last night?How about that homer that So-and-So hit?”And he would practice the cadence.
And these were things that he deliberately practiced to try and say them without stuttering so he could do it in public.And it was a calculated effort to try and do this.But it was—it lasted well into his high school years.
Val told you he was bullied quite a bit.Talk a little bit about that.
He was bullied.He was made fun of because of the stutter.They called him—Dash was one of the nicknames they gave him, because they would say, like, “J-J-J-Joe,” with dashes in between the Js.And so that was his nickname, Dash.And he was bullied, he was made fun of, and it was devastating.Val talked about it as, “If you want to understand my brother,” she said, “understand he hates bullies.Hates, hates, hates bullies.”
And she related that directly to his boyhood and his problems and feeling so inferior, not being able to ask a girl on a date because he couldn’t say it and being made fun of.
Biden and Empathy
She sort of believes that his famous empathy comes from this, that he understood people who suffered or didn’t fit in, in a way.Explain that.
Most definitely you can see that the empathy that he ends up having famously now in his life would stem—you could trace it back to a child who was bullied and who felt the depth of that, just that loneliness, that just shame of feeling like you were being made fun of all the time.
And so when he sees someone being made fun of, or if he sees someone suffering, he knows what it feels like.He genuinely knows what it feels like.And so that’s not hard for him.That’s a natural reaction to watching anyone struggling with anything difficult.I think he has a sense that he understands; he can feel it.
Biden’s Relationship with His Sister
The importance of Val to him in his life, a couple years younger, his best friend in some way.Talk about that relationship.
Oh, they were very, very close, he and his sister, Val.And whenever he talked about Val, looking back at his boyhood, it was always with this wide smile and this kind of rascal smile.And the things that—they were like best friends, I think.And the things that she would do, she would hide behind the dining room hutch so that when he came in late at night, he wouldn’t know she was there, and she would reach out and scare him.And it worked every time, he said.Just small things like that, that were—they were pals.They were pals, and she really looked after him, I think particularly because of the ways in which he was bullied.It affected her deeply, too.So they remain—I mean, they remain obviously very close to this day.
Biden’s Catholic Upbringing
Talk about the importance of the Catholic faith to him.It seems that the way he’s been a public servant, and he feels an obligation to run for office time and time again, even at the age of 77, comes from almost like a calling in some ways, if you look at it that way.The importance of religion to him, to his family and what it taught him or gave him.Is there something pronounced that in a way when you look at that family and you look at his life?
I think you see a strict Catholic family which is held together by religion, by its faith in a culture that holds itself together that way, especially Irish Catholic in that era when he was growing up.So it’s very much a—entirely his identity.And the sense of sin and repentance and the importance of doing unto others and caring for your community, these are instilled in him at the youngest age, as most Catholics could attest, along with the other stuff that comes with it.But certainly that’s formative, and it remains close to—again, if you look at the empathy, in your faith you’re taught to be empathic in the Catholic faith.It’s all part and parcel.
And even when he would talk about his mother and the lessons that she would instill in him, it was interesting because it wasn’t like he was talking God all the time; it was more like wisdom.Like his mother would say, for example: “You’re not better than anybody.You’re a Biden, which means you’re not better than anybody, but it also means nobody’s better than you.You are equal.We are equal.All people are equal.”That was instilled in him by his mother, and he, again, that—just him pointing that out gave me a lot of insight into him as a politician, that it’s not something he needs to fake, that he cares about people.It’s kind of almost like he can’t help it; it’s how he came up in the world.
So there’s a story, I’m told, about a nun.Tell us what happened, one embarrassing moment in high school for Joe Biden.
Well, when Biden was in high school at Archmere Academy in Wilmington, he had to—he had an assignment—he had to memorize a speech or something. That was the assignment.And he had to stand up and deliver it in the classroom.And he began the speech and he said, “gentleman” “gentle man” in the speech instead of “gentleman.”He just got the word wrong.And the nun in charge of this class sternly corrected him by saying, “Mr. B-B-B-Biden,” making fun of his stutter.And it was so embarrassing and so enraging that Biden walked out of the room; he walked out of the school.He walked all the way home, where his mother was.And maybe he was going to get in trouble for doing that, but it turns out he didn’t.His mother said, “What happened?”And he told her.
And so she, with him, marched back to school, demanded to talk to the principal, tell the principal what happened.The nun had to come in.And she—Biden’s mother said to the nun, “If you ever do anything like that again to my son, and make fun of him, I’ll knock that headpiece right off your head.”And Biden was sent back to class.And that was it.
But it was—it was his mother defending him at all costs.It was his mother saying, “This is not how you treat my son, ever.”
He talked to you a little bit about how people viewed stutterers.People thought they were dumb or they had no confidence.And it’s a thing that in a lot of ways has plagued him all his life, and we’ll talk more of that as we go along.But talk about that, how he felt when people treated him like that.
Well, his point around being made fun of as a stutterer was you would never make fun of a kid with a clubfoot or with something physically wrong; you just know better.You know better not to make fun of a child or anyone suffering from some physical disability.But for some reason with stutterers, he said: “It’s open season.You just—you can crack any joke you want.You can mock; you can make fun, and the implication being in the mocking of stutterers, you’re thought of as stupid or maybe lazy or you just don’t—why don’t you just say it?What’s the matter with you?”But largely it was a matter of, “You must be dumb.”
And to carry that around, as a really brilliant guy, almost never gets to find out that—never gets to realize that he’s as brilliant as he is because that’s what he’s hearing, the kids making fun of him as a stutterer: “You’re stupid.”
That honestly—I was surprised at how often this subject came up during my time with him.I didn’t realize—it kept coming up in these ways.And I—it helped me understand that so much of who he is comes back to that, feeling people don’t appreciate him for who he is, that people are ready to make fun of him, that people will laugh. I mean, even though he’s well past a stutterer, well, well, well past it, but it was so formative.
Biden’s Early Interest in Politics
So let’s skip some time.So he goes to college; he goes to law school.He comes back to Wilmington after the ’68 riots, and his interest now is in politics.He wants to get involved in politics.Why politics?He certainly has a background.There’s the whole pool story and everything where he got to know some of the Black residents of Wilmington, some very close to him that we’ve talked to that help him later on in the elections and stuff.And he says that civil rights is always one of the major things that drove him.From what you reported on and what you learned about him, he certainly was no activist, but he wanted to make a difference, and politics was the direction he took.Why?
Politics almost seems like a strange choice for him as a young man.Given that—well, let me back up.
If you think of a guy like Biden choosing to be a politician, first you have to think about in high school, he’s president of his senior class.Honestly, that’s when he gets a taste for it.And keep in mind, the stutter is still part of him during his senior year in high school, where he has to introduce his family at the—at graduation, and he has to stand up there and not stutter and say this publicly.And he does it; he says, “I’m going to introduce you to my family.”And he does it.And the class of 1964, or whatever it was, he was able to do it without the stutter, and it is a tremendous, to him—he talked about this.He talked about this with kids at Archmere who happened to be listening to him one day.He did it.He overcame it.It was huge.It was huge.
And he heads off to college then.He heads off to law school.He’s not much of a student, frankly.He would tell—he told me he really liked sports and girls better than studying.But he’s a smart guy, and he could do it.Then of course the turmoil of the ’60s, and he becomes really focused on civil rights.I mean, that’s really kind of his window into, “What do I got to do to—what’s my role in this?And do I have anything to offer?,” and, “I can—I was president of my class at Archmere.I can talk now.”
And he chooses to dabble in running for a local election at first, which seemed almost kind of random, but then skyrockets in: “I’m going to be a U.S. senator, and I’m just going to run for the Senate.”And with his cohort Valerie, they decided: “Let’s go.Let’s do it.Let’s be the little guy—let’s be the little train who could.”I mean, he had absolutely no chance of winning that election.He’s running against an incumbent who hadn’t lost a statewide election in, I mean, since like the ’40s.So it’s kind of crazy that he decides to do this and almost an adventure, him and Valerie, going off to try and become—try and get into the U.S. Senate.
And Neilia, of course, is involved in this at this point.Talk a little bit about the relationship.We don’t have to go into the whole history and everything, but his wife.He comes back to Wilmington to start a family.He’s found the love of his life.Neilia’s unbelievably smart, creative, beautiful woman who is his everything.
Neilia was the love of his life, and it was really a happily-ever-after tale.They get married.They’re in Wilmington.They have two sons, Hunter and Beau, and a baby, Naomi.And all of this is happening at the same time as he’s becoming interested in a political career, and Neilia is part of the driving force of it.She’s the support.She’s—the whole family’s involved in this “Make Joe a—Let’s make Joe a senator.”It becomes really a family project, certainly with Neilia and Valerie, the main drivers of how we’re going to do this, how we’re going to stand up to this incumbent and make this crazy thing happen.But it was a—it was a really—and then he wins.
I mean, it really becomes this happily-ever-after, until it isn’t, abruptly.
Biden’s First Senate Run
The audacity of running for Senate, a 29-year-old.He’s not even old enough yet to take the seat. ...Where does that come from, do you think?
It’s interesting to think where it comes from, that he had the—what is it, the courage or the audacity or the gumption to just run for U.S. Senate.You know, at 29 he’s not even really old enough to be sworn in.So where does that come from?It’s like his mother telling him that “No one’s better than you” and him having really gotten that message loud and clear?Does it come from his dad trying things and failing and getting up again and failing and getting up again?And you just try things; you don’t—you’re not scared.You want it, you go for it.And you know what?Your family’s going to help you.Of course your family is going to help you, this is who we are.We’re Bidens.
It was that sort of attitude, I think, because it’s crazy.It is crazy to think about that as a 29-year-old.But that was in him, clearly.
Biden’s Family Tragedy
So he’s riding high.It’s ’72.They won the friggin’ election, believe it or not.And now he’s preparing to take over, and he’s got to hire a staff.Val, who was big in helping run the campaign, is with him, working in Washington.His wife is taking care of the kids but goes back and forth to Washington.
So they’re in Washington.Val gets a phone call.Do you want to tell the story of what happens?
So shortly after he wins, he’s down in Washington, having to try and figure out how to set up a Senate office, with Val there to help him.And this is all new to them, clearly.It’s just the two of them figuring out—coming up with how to build this office.And they’re there one day, and the phone rings, and Val gets it.And Biden is sort of paying attention, and then he really starts paying attention when he sees her face.And it was like they knew each other so well, they could read each other’s expressions.
And he—he knew.He knew—he knew from the look on her face.She put the phone down, and he said, “She’s dead, isn’t she?”It was that abrupt.It was that—Neilia was at home with the kids, taking care of the kids in Wilmington, and he knew that.He wasn’t with her.And it was a truck that slammed into them.And she was dead, and Naomi was dead.And Hunter and Beau were in the hospital hanging on to life.That’s how he learned about it, through his sister’s face.
So what do they do?They fly up there, and how does everything change?
They fly up there.They fly up.They go to the hospital where his sons are.And he ends up being sworn in as senator in the hospital room with Beau and Hunter where they lay recovering.
He’s not sure that he’s going to stay in the Senate.He’s not sure that this is the right direction because his sons will need him.He’s a broken man right now.But the other senators sort of pile on and try to support him and give him positions that will help him transfer over into powerful positions.Val comes in and takes care of the kids.And he makes some decisions.
So after the accident, here he is, having just won this election and his happily-ever-after with his wife and his children, and the whole thing in a blink of an eye is gone, his family.His—the love of his life, gone.And now he has this victory with this election.It’s so confusing, and he’s not sure what—he’s not even sure what to do.He’s not sure he can even be a senator anymore.He’s got these two boys who now only have one parent.It almost becomes like, who wants to—who can do that?Who can abandon your children as they’re in a hospital recovering?And “Who am I? What do I do here?”And he considers not even—he considers not—he just considers giving up.
Several other senators around him are starting to encourage him: “You can—we need you.And you can—we need you as part of this,” and kind of calling on him to do it, to be the leader that he was just voted in to be.
Meantime, he’s got Valerie already, stepping in and taking care of the kids, and he starts to realize that this is going to be the new, I guess, makeup of a new family.Valerie’s going to help raise the children.He’s going to have a job in Washington and a home in Wilmington, and he’s going to ride that train back and forth.He’s going to be home for dinner every night with his kids and his sister, and that’s going to be the family unit.It’s not the one he chose, but that’s going to be the one.And he’s going to get sworn in.And in fact, he gets sworn in in the hospital room where Hunter and Beau are recovering.
He takes you to the cemetery where his parents and Neilia and his baby girl are buried.Talk about that and the fact that he wouldn’t go over to the graves.
It was really interesting when he was touring me around Wilmington because I wasn’t—first of all, I wasn’t asking to be toured around Wilmington, precisely.I did want to see his hometown.It was interesting.But I didn’t ask for any particular destinations.This was entirely his itinerary in his head.He didn’t announce where we were going.We would get in and out of the car, and we would then show up to the next place and the next place and the next place.And one of those places was the cemetery where Neilia was buried, and Naomi and his parents, all together in an area.
I was surprised that he wanted to go there.He didn’t say, “Here’s where we’re going”; we just were there.But what he chose to show me were a lot of the historical, fascinating grave markers of all the old, old, old gravestones and how fascinating that is.And he kept gesturing towards this other area, saying, “My wife and my daughter and my mother and my father are over there.They’re over there.They’re over there,” as if we would go over there.And we kept not going over there.And he said it several times, and finally just stopped.And this is as close as he wanted to get, and pointed to the tree, the red maple that was—this was quite in the distance; you could make out a tree.You couldn’t really see anything else.
And I said, “Are we going to go over?”And he said, “No, there’s a funeral going on over there; I don’t want to disturb anyone.”But there wasn’t a funeral going on over there.There was nothing.There was just the red maple.And he stared at it from this distance as if that was as close as he was going to be able to get that day.
And he talked about—he kept saying, “My mother, my father, my wife and my daughter, that’s where they are.”You could feel it.You could feel that it was just too hard to even—for him to even contemplate any further than that.It was palpable.
What does it say about him?
Sensitive, sensitive, sensitive soul.That was my read.Not—first of all, choosing—first of all, thinking about: “OK, I’ve got a journalist with me, and I’m going to tour her around where I grew up.And by God, I’m going to go by the cemetery because that is a piece of me that is true, that people should know.”Choosing to do that, first of all, and then realizing it was too much right there in the moment to go to a gravesite with his beloved wife who died, and his baby daughter, and his parents, and it just—it said to me this is a sensitive, sensitive soul who—he wasn’t afraid to step towards his own pain, but it was that painful that he couldn’t get any closer to it.That’s—he was no longer a politician in these moments, in my mind.This was just a guy who had suffered tremendously and wanted to be true to himself to bring it up, but that’s it.It was too raw, even now, all these years later, just too, too raw.
Obama Selects Biden as Running Mate
So 2008 election.Obama chooses Biden as his vice presidential partner.Talk a little bit about that.I think in the article you write about the fact that he said no at first and then Obama convinced him.He did it under the idea that they would be partners in a way.Talk about becoming vice president and sort of what the relationship was with Obama.
When Obama asked him to be his vice president in 2008, Joe Biden said no at first.He didn’t want to do it.He didn’t—I don’t know why he didn’t want to do it, but he didn’t want to do it.And Obama had to convince him.And one of the things that Biden said to Obama was, “I’m not wearing any funny hats,” which I thought was such an interesting thing for him to even remember and to refer to.But it was this notion that: “No one’s going to laugh at me.I’m going to be a serious vice president.I’m not going to be just one of those ones that shows up in the camera for people to know that, yeah, you have a vice president, or to have a joke made about me because I’m just a vice president.”He said: “If I was going to do this, I was going to be a partner in this.This was going to be kind of a partnership, that I was going to have real responsibilities.I wasn’t just going to stand there running for president one day as maybe vice presidents in the past had done, more as a figurehead.But I was going to have my own portfolio, and we were going to be a team.”
And these were the kinds of things that he asked for, and Obama, that’s what he wanted.He wanted a guy who had the kind of life experience all across the world that Joe Biden had.And that was a piece of it, certainly.
What else did he bring?You talked about the fact he used his political capital that he had built up.He had great relationships with both sides of the aisle, and he knew everybody.What did he bring to Obama?
Well, here was a partner for Obama.Here was a guy who could not just walk across the aisle, but who knew everybody across the aisle, who could literally hug and pat on the back and help make deals because they had such a long history together.And people liked him.It was like, I mean, what—at that time, what does Obama know about reaching across the aisle?Like, he’s the new kid.
But he has someone like Biden by his side who can lead that path, and not only just someone who has relationships, but it was just like, he’s the guy who can say, “malarkey,” you know, and talk in a way that Obama didn’t.He was a pal to so many people.And Biden, and Obama, being the more formal sort of professor, it was an interesting kind of counterpoint, I think, to the new president.
Biden as Vice President
And the work he did, the things that Obama gave him, entrusted to him—the fiscal deal, of course, and Newtown.He became a pretty influential vice president.He also did things that one would not have expected, and anything on this would be useful.As the first Black president, Obama felt a bit constrained about dealing with racial issues to some extent, until later in the second term.And so Joe would stand in for him there, too.He would be at the funerals when crises happened in Black communities or in police communities.He could play both roles.Tell a little bit of what he was entrusted with and sort of what he brought to the role of vice president.
One of the things that Biden—it’s not that he excelled at, but it came so naturally to him, was consoling the public and raising awareness; for example, the Newtown shootings.That really became Biden’s turf to deal with.Not just the obvious need to console families and to help a community grieve, which was Biden’s specialty then and remains today, but also, it was just like, send Biden out to talk to communities, to talk to the NRA, to reason with people about gun control, to raise awareness.Let Biden do that.He became the face of that in a way that I think was really successful.And it was stuff that—it’s not that Obama couldn’t do it, but it was something that naturally—it became part of his charge.There were specific issues like that that just were naturally suited to what Biden brought to the role.
And I don’t know that was what presidents did so much with vice presidents in the past.But he really was a—he served a vital function as a vice president that certainly—that was obvious to anyone looking on who started realizing, especially in the second term, after it was just like, this vice president is actually influential and making a mark.I don’t know that we saw a lot of those kinds of vice presidents, at least in modern history.
Biden as the 'Most Misunderstood Man in Washington'
You called him “the most misunderstood man in Washington.”What’d you mean?
I came to the conclusion that he was sort of like the most misunderstood man in Washington.I just think there’s this sense that people have that Joe Biden is just this close to being always the butt of a joke.It’s a public persona that he’s going to make a gaffe or he’s going to say something; he’s right on the edge of maybe, oh, something he’s going to say, it’s going to be embarrassing, and it’s going to make us laugh.Like the uncle at Thanksgiving who you’re like, ew.And why he carries that around, I don’t get it; I don’t know.But I know it; I get it; I understand.
And having spent time with him in all kinds of scenarios, you realize that he knows that, and it pains him, because it goes back to who he was as a child when he was made fun of.And if people could just understand how, not just irrational that is, but how cruel that is, to look at a person that way and to not appreciate his vast intellect for what it is—like, if people could just understand that, maybe they wouldn’t think about him anymore.Like, it was frustrating to him, to be thought of as just Uncle Joe, and that he’s so much more than that.
And he—what was lovely about the way he talked about it was he couldn’t even bring himself to say it: “I’m a smart guy.I’m a brilliant guy.I’m a talented guy.”He could not bring himself to say those words.It was like, finally he ends up with just saying, “There’s this thing, you know?,” and I did know.And I felt like, Washington doesn’t give this man enough credit, and we don’t understand him.There’s a depth to him that is so profound.
You know, apart from whatever you think of his politics or if he’s a good politician or any of that … this is like a character in American history who deserves to be really paid attention to and shouldn’t be trivialized.
What do you think part of that is?His loquaciousness, his stating things like over the microphone when he doesn’t know the microphone is on about health care, “This is a big f---ing deal”?What is it about him?
I think that what it is about him is he’s so likable that he’s a friend.You look at him like you know him, like he’s a—you trust him.He’s not threatening to anybody.He’s not making fun of people.He’s not a tough guy.He’s not sharp in his criticism.He’s giving people the benefit of the doubt all the time.So in that way, he’s likable.And when you have someone who’s likable, maybe you can’t hold these two together, these ideas, that this likable, genial person who’s generous and kind is also really brilliant.It’s like for some reason we’re not putting those things together in Joe Biden.He’s just that likable guy that we trust.But, you know, Obama’s the brilliant one, and Joe’s the guy who can—everyone likes.
So it has something to do with that.I don’t think it has to do with the gaffes.I mean, everybody makes gaffes.I think it has to do with the comfort level.The comfort level that he engenders in others as a public figure is rare.
You tell one story about him and Val meeting the pope when he was the vice president.He wouldn’t kiss the ring.Tell that story, please.
So there we were at the pope’s inauguration, and Val was with him, of course, wearing her chapel veil much like she would have as a young girl in church.And Biden introduces the pope, “This is my sister, Valerie,” and they reach hands one after the other, and neither of them kissed the pope’s ring.And certainly Biden didn’t kiss the pope’s ring.
Mind you, plenty of people didn’t, but there is a tradition that one does.A headline came out, worldwide, the next day saying, “Joe Biden doesn’t kiss the ring.”It was like a mocking.It had nothing to do with a sense of not respecting the pope.Quite the contrary.It went back to his mother saying: “You’re no better than anyone, and no one is better than you.We’re all equals.”And so to bow to a pope would have been anathema to who they were as Catholics.They were all the same.They were children of God.And that’s who they were.They were Bidens.
And so it was funny, because the press treated it as if it was rude or something like that, but—or hostile, maybe?But that’s certainly not the way his mother ever meant that statement.It was more a human equalizer: We’re all created equal.
Beau Biden
At the end of Obama’s second term, he’s thinking about running in 2016, naturally enough.And [Thomas E.] Donilon and others have sort of started the plans on how it would happen.But then Beau starts to get sick.Talk a little bit about the relationship between Beau and the vice president. ...Talk a little bit about that relationship and how, when the illness happened, how focused he was on it.He was at the bedside constantly, though nobody really knew about it.The public didn’t know much about what was going on, but what it says about that relationship.
Well, certainly Beau Biden, I mean, he was the apple of Biden’s eye.He was not just someone who he thought was brilliant and successful and so proud of him.It went beyond pride; it was almost like: “He’s the perfect version of me.He has the stuff that I quite didn’t get.He’s got it all.”He looked at him as carrying on the political career that maybe Biden himself was going to have to say goodbye to as he was aging.
So he adored him, and he was in awe of him.And his own legacy, I think, was tied up in him, in his visions of what Beau was capable of.So when he got sick, naturally, knowing the Bidens even a little bit, you’re not surprised to know that Joe Biden was at his son’s side every step of the way.And the utter—and it’s just like the impossibility of, really?He got through his wife dying and his baby daughter dying, and he got his life all these years building, building, building, and now this?Really?It’s hard to even imagine—it’s hard to imagine a guy having to suffer through that now.And I think it was utterly crushing.I mean, crushing.And it became—a political career for himself was completely irrelevant at that point.
Beau dies.You don’t write about it, so I don’t know if we can talk about any of it, but the effect on him?Do we know?
Well, I did see him once after Beau died.I saw him, not on purpose.I happened to be in Obama’s White House, and he walked in.And honestly, it was almost like I didn’t recognize him.This was shortly after Beau died.He just looked like he had aged years and years in such a short amount of time.He was trying to do his Biden thing.Always when he would walk into the West Wing, it was always, “Hey! Hey! Hey! You! You! You!,” pointing and acting like everybody’s a member of his bowling team, that sort of Biden.He was doing it, but it was hollow.It was—I was taken aback by how old he looked at that time.That was right then.
And if there was any question that he was maybe going to run for president back then, anyone there as part of his staff would have just said: “You guys have got to be crazy.There’s no way this guy can give of himself when he’s suffering like this.”It was bad.
Biden’s Decision Not to Run in 2016
And the stories about Obama—Joe writes about it himself—Obama makes clear finally at a point that Clinton is the right person to be running, and “It’s not your time, Joe.”The effect, do you think, on him?
I just don’t think it was a surprise at all that Obama would have said, “It’s not your time, Joe,” because also, even back in 2013 when I was interviewing him, he was just like—the staff would say: “There’s no way he’s going to get in the way of Hillary.He just won’t do it.This is history marching forward, and Joe Biden’s not going to muck it up.”It was a selfless kind of like—as much as like, clearly, that’s the dream, it was not his time, and I think he just knew it.But to hear it then years later from Obama, it probably just sealed the deal in a way that, I don’t know, wouldn’t feel good for anybody.
And the Medal of Honor ceremony that took place, when you looked at that, did you see a man, a relationship that was certainly wonderful between a president and a vice president, and an honor that was very significant on a very personal level, but also clearly the end of a career?
Oh, definitely.Back then, during the Medal of Honor ceremony, that was what—it was hard to see it any other way, I think; that it was like: “Good job, Joe.You did it.You made it this far through all those obstacles.You wanted to be the best vice president ever.”That’s what he would say to me, “I want to be the best vice president ever,” as if he had to couch it that way because he wasn’t going to get to run for president.“So, by God, you were the best vice president ever,” that kind of thing, “and we salute you, Joe.”I think that was the feeling.
And I remember feeling myself, just having spent the time with him that I had that, ah, it just hurt a little bit.The guy didn’t get to get one more run at it after all this, not knowing if he would ever be successful, but wow, he’s been through all this, you know, and can’t he just come out the other side one more time?But with the grief, you almost said: “Please don’t.Please take care of yourself.”It was that bad.
Why Biden Runs in 2020
So, lo and behold, at the age of 77, what’s the impetus to make this run now, do you think?
… What do you think motivated him to run this time?
I did not get a chance to ask him or talk about it, but my educated guess here is, he felt it was his duty.He knew he had what it takes to do it, to beat this guy, and that America needed him.Whether it’s true or not, I think in his heart that’s the way he sees it: “America needs me,” and, “My pals around the world, the world leaders around the world are my pals—they trust me; they know me.I know their sons; I know their daughters; I know their grandfathers.I’ve been around.I can do this.I can do this.And I can bring us back into a place where maybe people will feel proud to be Americans again.”That kind of stuff I can imagine motivating him.
And then, of course, the distant view of Beau probably, making Beau proud, like: “OK, you didn’t get to do it; I’m going to do it, because we’re Bidens.That’s what we do.Nobody’s better than us, and we’re not better than anybody.I got it. I’m going to take it from here.”That kind of thing. I think at a personal level, it was like that for him.
In the world that we live in now, though, with politics the way they are in D.C., does that style still work for Joe Biden, do you think?
Well, I’m guessing that there’s a hunger for it, the style of Joe Biden.But I’m mindful, and the ironies can’t be lost on anyone, here he is now.He’s going to run against a guy who people call the biggest bully there is.Joe Biden, the guy who can’t stand bullies, who spent his life defending others from bullies.And now it’s almost like a Greek play.OK, now here you are at the end of your life, and the one last move is to defeat the bully.I mean, it will make a beautiful opera someday, what happens.
The film is called <i>The Choice 2020</i>. …What kind of president will Joe be?What kind of a choice is he?
What kind of choice is Joe Biden?Well, see, I don’t want to be in the party of people who demean him, because I would say he’s the safe choice.But that sounds like I’m demeaning him, and I don’t feel that in a demeaning way at all.I feel like with a culture that’s so splintered, and every day it seems that we’re splintered into another America, splintering into another America, we’re splintering into like 15 Americas at this point, to have this leader, a real unifier who people in a personal way can see themselves in, to bring some healing to the nation, the guy who they send out at the worst times to talk to grieving families because he can speak healing in a genuine way, that he knows that he’s earned it, he’s felt it, he’s been it, that central empathy that he embodies.That’s a rare politician, number one, at all, in this very rare moment.
So you could say he’s the safe choice, but maybe it’s the wise choice.Maybe that’s a better way of thinking of it.
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