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Valerie Biden Owens
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Valerie Biden Owens
Sister of Joe Biden
Valerie Biden Owens is Joe Biden’s sister and has managed his seven senatorial campaigns, as well as his two previous presidential campaigns.
The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Jim Gilmore on July 21, 2020. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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The Biden Way
We hear lots of stories about the Biden way and the family relationship together, the importance of loyalty.Talk a little bit about your family, and the importance of religion.Talk a little bit about what it was like to grow up with your family and with Joe Biden.
Well, we were—I would define my family as a middle-class Irish Catholic family.I have three brothers.I’m the only girl.And my brother Joe is the eldest of all of us.And I can remember, from the time that I was a little girl, my big brother Joey took me with him wherever he went.I used to run alongside his bike when he got his first Schwinn bicycle.And I could jump on the back fender or the middle bar or the basket, like I should have been an acrobat.I could do an acrobatic act in the circus.I was—I was fast and furious, keeping up with him.
And the only time I’d have to hop off the bike is when it was going uphill.And he’d say, “Hop off.”And when we got up the top of the steep hill, I’d jump back on again.My family, Mom and Dad, told us that the most important thing in life was family and that it was our job to take care of each other, to watch out for each other.And that’s—that’s what—that’s what we did.We had to take care of each other.We had to respect other people.My mom would always say to us that “There’s nobody better than you, but you’re no better than anybody else.”So we had to treat people with dignity. ...
And we always knew—my mom said that failure—now this is—this is the translation, as I'm an older woman now.But what the essence was that failure would happen in everyone’s life, but giving up was unforgivable.So you had to keep—it was the doctrine of resilience.Well, honey, yeah, that—things were tough, but come on.My dad would say, “It's not how often you get knocked down; it’s how quickly you get back up.”
So our—the way—I think we were—we were like normal kids at the time.Mom stayed at home, as most moms did at that time.My dad sold cars.And he was in touch with my mother.I mean, he’d be on the phone—if he called her three times, he called her 20 times, just to say, “Hi, how are you?What's going on?,” and then hang up.My father was not a man of many words.My mother was the one who was the talker in the family.
My father was quieter.He spoke up, but when he spoke to us, I mean, we all perked up.My dad—my dad didn’t have to say twice to us what—what—what he was thinking or what he wanted us to do.So we were—we knew that America was a great place that was a land of opportunity.We were told that education was the key for us to advance.Neither Mom nor Dad went to college.So education was the key.
My mom said our job—my job, when she spoke directly, speaking to me—was to be a student.Her job was to be the mother.So I don’t remember that there were specific chores or things that we had to do.We just had to help each other.There were never—there was never a set of rules on the refrigerator.You know, there was nothing arbitrary about my parents.They never gave us—as I said, they never gave us a list of rules, but we always knew what was expected of us.
And the worst thing that Mom or Dad could say to any one of the four of us was: “Just get out of my sight.I'm so disappointed.”And oh, my God.I mean, it was—that was a—that was a terrible blow.I don’t remember any of us being sent to our room or privileges taken away.They didn’t have to do that.And when we made a mistake, we had to own up to it.We could never lie to our parents or to each other.And the worst—I mean, the worst condemnation you could get would be, “I’m so disappointed.”
And we were normal kids.We were—we raised hell.We got into trouble.But once we walked outside our home, once the door closed behind us, we were Bidens.“Bidens” not meaning anything glorious.It’s not like Biden is—but Bidens that we were four kids, and we had to stick together, and loyalty was tantamount.We took care of each other.God forbid you say an unkind word, let alone—it was never even a thought of laying a hand on each other, but an unkind word was—was unforgivable.
A Catholic Upbringing
Talk about the importance of the Catholic Church in your family life.I mean, it seems—I know you went to parochial schools.And it seems that Joe, your brother, also always had this sort of like a calling, in some ways, I guess how the nuns used to describe it, about a feeling of responsibility to accomplish certain things, because he’s always been so driven in the tasks that he takes on.But talk a little bit about the Catholic Church and how important it was.
Well, the Catholic Church, the Catholic social doctrine that we were raised on as products of the Catholic school—I mean, the nuns—we all went to 12th grade.Joe went to the all-boys Catholic high school, and I went to the all-girls Catholic high school.That Catholic social doctrine just dovetailed with our family values.I mean, there was—there wasn’t daylight between the two.We weren’t the Catholic family who said the rosary every night or who pontificated more.We were the Catholic family who, I guess not even consciously, were living the Catholic social doctrine.It was just who we were.
I remember that my—what we did is we went to Mass every Sunday.We observed the “no meat on Friday.”That was in the old days.But we didn’t—we didn’t wear it on our sleeves.We just—as I said, we just were.There was no distinction between the two.And in eighth grade, in Catholic schools, February was vocation month, and the priests or the nuns would come into our classroom and talk about the vocation of becoming a nun and the vocation of becoming a priest.
And when—I remember, the nun came into when I was in eighth grade into the classroom and talked about becoming a nun and then said, “So how many of you were thinking about becoming a nun?”And I was one of the few girls who did not raise her hand.And after the nun left, the speaker left, the nun said to me, like, “Miss Biden, you didn’t raise your hand.”And I said, “No, because if I’d be anything, I’d be a priest.”
But when the priest came into Joe’s classroom in eighth grade, he was very taken by it, and I remember his coming home to Mom and Dad and his saying, “You know, I might want to be—I think I might want to become a priest.”And my mom said, “Well, that’s wonderful, honey; that’s great.”And there's a St. Charles Seminary, which is close to where we live, outside of Philadelphia.And so you could go, at that time, the young boys went from eighth grade, they went into the seminary in ninth grade and went through to their priesthood.“So maybe, you know, I’m thinking about that.”
And my mom said: “Well, it’s wonderful if you want to be a priest, but there’s no way in hell you’re going at ninth grade to be a priest.You go to high school, you go to college, and when you get out, and if you want to be a priest, you have my blessing.But you’re not going in ninth grade.You’re too little to make that decision.”
So there was always—I mean, he—he would be a good priest.He would be a good Jesuit.That’s what—because he is very bright.He uses his intellect, and he also understands the humanity of man, the goodness in human nature.And I—you know, he would have been a good priest, but I think he’ll even be a better president.
Joe Biden’s Struggle with a Stutter
Talk a little bit about his stuttering when he was young, how difficult it was.You talked in the past to people about how he was made fun of by bullies…So talk a little bit about the stutter and sort of what it meant in those very important days of your life in grammar school and in high school dealing with that issue.
Well, when I was a little girl, I didn’t—he was my big brother, and invincible.And I didn’t notice it so much until, I guess, I got into fourth or fifth grade, that I—that I saw that he stuttered.And I am—I feel very certain that his stuttering really chiseled who he is.And because of it, he developed a backbone of steel and became a little boy of courage, and a little boy with a great deal of empathy.
Now, every one of us, there’s somebody in our lives who, you know, has made fun of us or who’s bullied us.My father spoke of bullying in the terms of abuse of power.One thing my father said, that the worst thing in the world was the abuse of power.And we all know abuse comes more than just physical abuse.It’s social abuse; it’s economic abuse; it’s psychological abuse.
Well, bullies are the—practice the abuse of power all the time.They’re bigger, or they’re stronger, or they’re in some other position that they feel inadequate.But that’s why they bully you.So my brother was—people feel free to make fun of stutterers.I mean, they just—they’ll mimic back what you say.And I know that it was—it was—it was difficult for my brother.But he was not going to be defined by a bully.
He never came home from school and said, “Oh, Bobby made fun of me, and poor me,” or, “Woe is me,” or, “How come I stutter?”He was never—he just knew he stuttered, and he was going to do something about it.And he was not going to let, as I said, a bully define him.
So he would practice in front of the mirror.And we had a split-level three-bedroom house.The boys—Mom and Dad had one room; I had another of my own, because I was the only girl; and then the middle room was the boys’ room, which was two sets of bunk beds.And there was a mirror there, and he would practice in front of the mirror, because when stutterers are trying to get the words out, their mouth contorts, or their face contorts to spit that word out.
And that’s where he developed his great love for Irish poets.He would—he would recite [William Butler] Yeats particularly.And he—he eventually—stutterers deal with cadence and a rhythm.That’s how they—that’s how he—and again, when I say stutterers, I do not know what I speak other than my brother has the stutter.And so he would speak in—with the particular cadence.
And in Catholic school, in Catholic grade school, when you go into the classroom, and you sit in the rows, you are defined by the rows that the first desk goes to either the person with A, in alphabetical order—that first student, or goes to the shortest, the tiniest student, or else the brightest student, all right, gets that first desk, whatever way the nun organizes it.
So he was in the alphabet line.So he was the third or fourth person in this first row.And what we used to do at school is, we would—each student would read a paragraph out loud, whether it was a history report or whatever it was.And in this case—now again, I'm not in the classroom.I'm behind him.But he’s in the third or fourth seat.And he figures out, not so tough, that he gets—let’s say he’s in the fourth seat, and that he gets the fourth paragraph.
So he starts practicing in his mind, saying a rhythm and a cadence to that fourth paragraph.So by the time that it gets to him, he’ll be settled.And the paragraph was about Sir Walter Raleigh.And the story goes that Sir Walter Raleigh took off his cloak and threw it over the mud puddle so that the woman would not get her shoes muddy.So when Joe read it, it went, “Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentle man.”And the sister said to him: “Master Biden, will you say that again?Say that again?”“Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentle man.”And this went on three times…
At the third time that my brother said, “Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentle man,” —and at this third repetition, my brother’s throat is closing, —the nun looked at him and said, “Master B-B-B-Biden, do you need your classmates to tell you how to say that?Anybody in the class here know how to help Master B-Biden?”And that’s when my brother closed the book, got up, and a real profile in courage, he walked out of the classroom on a nun.And that’s something you just never did in the Catholic school.
And he not only walked out of the classroom, he walked out of the school, and he walked home to our house, which is probably six or seven miles away.My mom was home with Frankie, who was the youngest.And Joe went in and said, “Mom, I quit school.”And he told Mom what happened, and Mom said, “Oh, no, no, no, no, Joey, you’re going right back to school.”And she grabbed him, threw him in the car with Frankie—“Here, hold Frankie”—and she went back to the school.
The principal’s office was very small.By the way, the principal’s office had already called Mom to tell her that her son had walked out and was very disrespectful to Sister.So when my mom walked back into the school, there was a little outer office.She sits Joe down in the outer office, plops Frankie in his lap, and she goes into the inner office.And the mother superior started telling Mom what went on.And my mom said: “Oh, stop. Stop.I want to see the nun, Sister So-and-so.I want to talk to her.”
So she brings in the sister who reprimanded Joe or made fun of Joe, and the sister starts telling how disrespectful Joe is, and my mother said, “Stop.”She said: “Just tell me.Did you make fun of my son?”“Well, I—” “Sister, did you make fun of my son?” “Well.”And my mother said: “Well, I’ll answer it for you.You sure in hell did.And if you ever, ever, ever do that again, I’m going to come back and I’m going to knock your bonnet right off your head.Do we understand each other?”Sister said, “Yes.”
She went back.My mom comes out of the office, takes Frankie, said: “OK, Joey, go back to school.Go back in your class.”So we know—I mean, everybody who’s had some—again, Joe’s not—Joe is not so special.Everybody’s had people make—make fun of them.Some—some—but everybody can think of a bully in their life.And you know, we all know that humiliation has a long shelf life.When you think of that person, and that bile still rises, sticks in your throat.
And you have a choice, though.The thing that I think is outstanding about my brother is not that he had been bullied, because we all have, but because when you are bullied, you have a choice.And your choice is that you can become a bully yourself and step on people who don’t look like you, who don’t speak like you, or whose values you don’t understand, or you can appreciate and get it, that “We’re all in this together,” and develop a quality that is, I think, rare in political life today, especially.And it’s called “empathy.”
My brother understood, at a very, very young age, that every life is an incredible act of bravery.He got that almost from the beginning, when he opened his eyes.And I think that that—that’s what makes him in a league all of his own right now, or in a very rarified league: empathy and an intellect to appreciate and understand the difference between someone being mean-spirited and somebody who just makes a dumb, stupid mistake, and not ripping them apart for it.
… One other thing about this time, period of life, his uncle lived in the room with him, with his brothers, I guess.What lessons did he—
What uncle?
Ed?
Uncle Boo-Boo?
Yeah, Uncle Boo-Boo.
OK.
So he’s written, and other people have written, about the fact that he learned from his uncle, and his uncle’s inability to conquer the stutter was something that also motivated him.
Yeah.Well, Uncle—our house was a multigenerational house.And I don’t know, now being a married woman, I don’t know how my parents survived it.I mean, they had absolutely no privacy and no—a relative would come to visit and would stay.Now, Uncle Boo-Boo, his name was Edward Blewitt Finnegan, and the first nephew couldn’t say Uncle Blewitt, and it came out “Uncle Boo-Boo,” and it stuck with him.
So he would come.He didn’t live there permanently, but he would come for a weekend, and he would be there for—it was my mother’s brother—and he would be there for three weeks or four weeks.The aunt who came, you know, stayed 17 years.But they didn’t all—didn’t live in the house.
But any—when my Uncle Boo-Boo was a bachelor, I was his favorite in the family.Everybody—he called me Angel.And he was a role model, because he really did have a terrible, terrible stutter.And my Uncle Boo-Boo was really, really bright.But what he did is he took the stutter, and it turned him bitter or angry and like, “Why me?”And, “I could have been anything, but I—but I have this, and God darn, all those other people.”
And so my—my brother learned the lessons, some by osmosis and some by directly watching Uncle Boo-Boo, that Uncle Boo-Boo had a crutch, that he could blame everything on the fact that he stuttered, and otherwise he would be whatever he wanted to be.So I think that—that really influenced Joe a great deal.You don’t blame others for something—you don’t blame other people and make fun of them for something that they can’t control, which is like your stuttering, or if you’re born with a limp, you don’t make—or there’s something, you look different, you don’t blame people for something that they—that they, again, didn’t do to themselves.That’s how they were born.
Uncle Boo-Boo used it as a crutch.Joe decided, again, early on, that he was not—because he stuttered, it wasn’t a crutch.He had to figure out a way to handle it, that it wasn’t somebody else’s fault.And you know, when disappointment comes, and he’s done this through—he’s had some tragic events in his life.And as much as tragedy can bring out bitterness and hatred and bile and anger, so, too, can tragedy bring out kindness and empathy and goodness and compassion.It takes a little bit longer.But again, that’s—that’s a route that you choose of how you’re going to deal with it. …Life has a way of interrupting, and there’s just no accounting for the good and the bad that it dishes out.There’s only accounting for how you deal with it.And Joe took the tragedies, the disappointments, the sorrow in his life, and didn’t use it as—as a—didn’t sink into it, didn’t allow himself to sink into it.He always took what I think is the harder road, which is, you’ve got to face things; you’ve got to get up; you’ve got to brush yourself off, and you’ve got to reach and start moving again and start moving forward and start hoping and start loving.
Just loving in itself is a tremendous risk, because you can get hurt.And you can stay isolated.You can give or not give.And he—he decided to keep moving and not be isolated.He appeals to the better angels in people.That’s why they like him.He appeals to the better instincts in human nature.
Joe Biden’s First Senate Run
Let’s talk about ’72.So he decides that he’s going to run for the Senate.At 29, 28 years old, I guess, is when he decided.And it’s an amazing decision.You’re right there with him, along with the rest of the family.Why—why politics?What drew him to the politics, especially at that level?
Why politics?Because politics is a very clear and sure way that you can make a difference, or try to make a difference.And that’s always what Joe has wanted to do.He’s wanted to make a difference.And people have come to him—I mean, from the time we were children, he was—he was the leader of the pack.And he wasn’t the leader who pounded his chest and told everybody to come round up, do what I say, this is what we’re going to do.He was the kid, the young man that people came to.They were drawn to him, because he’s a tremendous, tremendous listener.
… There’s a difference, which Joe knew from the beginning.There’s a difference between listening and hearing.And my mom always told us that, you know, that you can—that a lot more can be said between the lines.What you don’t say almost matters as much as what you do say.And ever since—I mean, Joe and I, when we were kids, all through college, we talked about everything.And in talking about everything, we talked about nothing.I mean, we weren’t sitting down to solve the problems of the world.We just talked.
And he was able to distinguish, from way back, the difference between my pause and an obvious deletion.He was able to distinguish the difference between my sigh and real sadness.And he honed that—he was able to do that with me, and he was always able to do that with—so that other people were drawn to him. …And so in ’72—I got off track again.What was your question?What was it like in ’72?
Well, what was the—
Why politics?
Well, why politics?But explain also what that campaign was like, with all the family was involved with, the hope that you had for something which a lot of people thought was a dream goal.What was it like?
They— A lot of people thought it was a fool’s errand.In 1972, we ran against a very, very lovely man.His name was Caleb Boggs, Sen. Caleb Boggs.He had been twice governor, twice U.S. House, and he was running for his third term, United States Senate.In the—remember, ’72 is the Nixon landslide year against George McGovern.
So we—this man who we ran against, as I said, there was not one unkind word spoken throughout the entire campaign.We weren’t running against the man.We never attacked him, nor he us.We were running for civil rights and civil liberties, for the environment, and to stop the war in Vietnam.So we were running because whatever the senator was doing, Sen. Boggs was doing, we thought were not effective in those—addressing those three problems that we looked at, that weren’t being handled the right way.
So I was—all right, in Delaware, there was no structured Democratic Party.It was a mess.We, the Bidens, we had no money; we had no power or influence; we didn’t know anybody who was a big name who could help us.But we—we had Joe—and this young man, with vision and with courage and with energy.And this young man who, again, was able to attract really good, fine people to come around and to work, to make a difference.And again, we had our three particular areas that we were concerned about.
I was teaching at Wilmington Friends School, which was a—in the high school.And Neilia, Joe’s late wife, was teaching at St. Catherine of Siena, a grade school.The press dubbed us the “Children’s Crusade.”And it was an apt—an apt description of us, because I was—I taught social studies.And the kids were—This was the first year that 18-year-olds could vote.And Joe really riled them up.They thought, he’s—he’s got great ideas; he’s a good guy.And I got my students to be involved.
And what happened in this small school—it was a bastion of Republicanism.The families were, not the teachers, so much.But it was a wealthy community, and the parents of these kids would no more have voted for a Democrat—they would have sooner voted for Mickey Mouse than a Democrat.You know, that’s the way it always existed.And when they saw their kids get involved and take an interest in this young boy, which Sen. Boggs called Joe—he said he was just a, he’s a nice young boy—they—they started to pay a little bit of attention.
When the—when the quarterback or the captain of the football team came on to work with Joe, well, guess what?The cheerleaders came to come to headquarters, not just the kid who was in the library and studying, you know, political races from years before, or the quiet freshman, said, “Hmm.”They came to the headquarters.And it was wonderful, because this is the only time that these disparate groups came together.And it’s the first time that that quiet little freshman ever got to talk to the quarterback or the pretty girl, you know, who’s the head of the cheerleading squad, or the brilliant student.
So it was a time of excitement.It was a time of possible change.And you know, when you—one of the blessings, you know, if you look at something, my mom said something that doesn’t look so good or bad, if you look at it long enough and work at it long enough, something good’s going to come out of it.Well, the good that came out of our having no influence and no resources was that we had to think out of the box.
And we created a brand-new campaign because we had no option of having no money.One of the things we did is we developed a rag—you know, the tabloid newspapers, which—well, every candidate in every election prior to this had glossy tabloids, which were mailed out to their constituents.Well, we didn’t have any money to publish a glossy tabloid, and we didn’t have any money for stamps.
So from Labor Day weekend to the election day, six weeks, we hand-delivered 360,000 tabloid newspapers throughout the state.And we started at 6:00 in the morning.And the kids who delivered it from 6:00 to—they quit at 8:30 to go play their football game at 10:00, and then they’d come back, and we’d deliver it for the rest of the day.It was—it was absolutely spectacular. …
And when these parents saw their kid get up at 5:30 to be at the drop-off, the pickup point at 6:00 in the morning to do this for Joe Biden, they thought, you know what?I’d better take another look at this guy.He’s doing something right to get my daughter or my son involved.And we won with 3,068 votes, and these parents were a major part of that.
It must have been an amazing time.
And every—the thing that made it more—every single—this is the gospel truth.The—I was the campaign manager.The advantage to having me as the campaign manager was I could complete Joe’s sentence, and he could go out and do campaigning.So it was trust.But, you know what?I already, because I was his sister, I had a seat at the table.Nothing was ever going to change.I mean, I was always going to be in that room.
So what I was able to do with grace, not with—with confidence, was to say, when we had that big rally, or we got this lit drop finished, or we did whatever it was that was unusual and successful, my brother would say: “God, Val, how did you do that?That was wonderful.”And I could say, absolutely with complete ease: “I didn’t do it, Joey.Margaret did it.She got the team together.”
And so it was—I wasn’t building a résumé for a political future.I was building the campaign for Joe.So I didn’t need to take the credit for everything, because I couldn’t anyway.I mean, it was every—it was the team.As a result of that, every single person who was on our campaign believed, to the fiber of their body, that if they didn’t do their job 100%, that Joe would not win.Every person, when Joe crossed the finish line on Nov. 7, they believed it was because they pulled him over.That was the key.
Joe Biden’s Family Tragedy
… So let’s take the turn, the lousiest turn that we’re going to take here.He’s at the peak of his—you know, this is amazing.A 29-year-old has won this race.He has a wonderful family with all of you, all working so closely.He’s got a wonderful wife that other people will talk about, and a wonderful family.And he’s down in Washington with you, working, and it’s late December, and you get a call.So if you don’t mind, tell us about that call and how it changes everything.
Well, it was Dec. 18.The Senate was in recess for Christmas.Sen. [Robert] Byrd told Joe—offered his office to Joe to interview the prospective staff.Because Joe was this rare 29-year-old who had won this—the major political upset in the country, we had résumés that were stacked on top of the desk and all around the desk.I mean, everybody wanted to come and work for him.
So we went down to interview staff.We were there—prospective staff.And we got a call from Jimmy Biden.I got a call from Jimmy Biden, and he said: “Come home, now.There's been an accident.”And Neilia was in the car, the station wagon, with the three children, Beau, Hunt, and Naomi.And she had gotten the Christmas tree, and she was on her way home, and she was hit broadside by a tractor-trailer, and she and Naomi, who sat behind her in the car seat, were—they died instantly.And Beau and Hunter were seriously injured.
So Joe also got a call from the ambulance, or company.And we just dropped everything, of course.And Jimmy Biden, I don’t know how, but he arranged for a plane to come get us.And I remember walking through the Russell Building and—because no one was there—and going quickly, and the echo of the tapping of our heels, you know, to try to get out of the building.
And on the way out the building, my brother looked at me and said, “She’s dead, isn't she?”And I said, “I don’t know, Joey.”I did know.Jimmy told me.And we got on the plane, and I remember it was a really bumpy ride home.We didn’t say a word.I just had my hand on his leg.And that’s what happened.And in six short weeks, we went from being on top of the world, with the future—he was the future of the Democratic Party.You know, he was the bright young hope.He went from that to being a young widower, a father of two children and a single dad, and a man with a broken heart.
And, I mean, it was—we had—we had done something that was impossible, in winning the election.And now it was gone.And it—nothing else mattered.You know, the only focus then was to get the boys well.And there—there was such a bond with Joe and the boys.They—and they were close.He was a good dad all along, but this forged them in steel.They took care of each other.Joe made them better, and they made Joe better.
And I moved in as, you know, and Mom and Dad were there, and my brother Jimmy and brother Frankie.But at nighttime, when you closed the door, he was still alone, and a widower and a single dad, no matter all the help.And our friends were wonderful.The state of Delaware was wonderful.But it was a very horrible, horrible time.
Thank you for telling us about that… Talk a little bit about Jill coming along. …
As a sister, what did you see?
As a sister, I saw my brother come alive again.I saw him smile.I saw him get up in the morning, and the world’s—I mean, I'm taking on the world.And he was—she was a gift.She was a gift to my brother.He fell in love with her very quickly, and she fell in love with my brother.Mostly she fell in love with the boys.And they were—they were thrilled.Like they—they saw their—they saw their dad so happy.And Jill, just on the relationship with them, they wanted to be with her and play with her.And she was young and vibrant and happy.And we—she made my brother whole.She was a gift to the entire family.
And she had a hard time, if you think of it.She not only had to come into the Biden family; she had to come into a political life, which was not what she wanted to grow up to be, a political spouse.She wanted to be an educator from the beginning, which she achieved also all on her own.But she had to marry the state of Delaware.I mean, everyone in Delaware loved Neilia and mourned her.… And that was a tough—they were tough shoes to fill.
But Jill filled them with grace, without skipping a beat.And Delaware loves her, loved her, grew to love her as much as they did Neilia.
Joe Biden’s 1987 Presidential Run
Let’s talk about the ’87 campaign.Why the run?Your role in this one?This is a big race.Why do you think your brother, at that point, said, “Yeah, this is the next step”?
Well, I ran the campaign, as I have done all of them up until this one.And we just kind of—we kind of fell into it.In 1988—I mean, in 1986 and ’87, we—my brother traveled around the country.He was—he was the bright—he was a strong, solid voice for the Democratic Party.People liked him.They wanted to hear what he had to say.And so many people would—I mean, almost wherever he would go and speak, would—would—the chant would start: “You should run for president.You should run for president.You should run for president.”
And so we thought about it and said, “Well, you know, let’s just see what’s out there.”We would form an exploratory committee and just see.He wasn’t sure whether we wanted to run or how well we—what he thought would mesh with the rest of the party.So we decided to do some preliminary work.And we were incredibly more successful than we thought that we would be.I mean, they—this really—“Joe Biden for President” really caught on, and there was a great deal of momentum. …
And then we had the Iowa State Fair.And by all accounts—not by his sister, but by all accounts, he made a mistake.He had quoted [British Labor Party leader Neil] Kinnock in every speech.The press corps knew it, knew his speech by heart, which means it's—that’s a good thing; you keep saying the same thing.And—but he—but he didn’t, at the end of the Iowa State Fair, for a good reason.But it doesn’t matter.He made a mistake.He didn’t say it.And he took the consequences, took the results.And he could either continue to work to regain his reputation, after the Dukakis campaign dropped a dime on him.1And they were the ones.It was the Democrats who went after us, because we were at the head of the pack.And so that’s what happened, and we then—tsunami happened, came after it.
1
New York Times: Two Top Aides to Dukakis Resign As One Admits Role in Biden Tape
The kick to the gut that that was to him, to all of you?Because again, it’s—he’s well known for his honesty and his integrity, and this was kind of a real kick to the gut, I would expect.
Yeah. It was—it was a low blow.You know, every—again, every person of any significance knew that that was Joe’s Kinnock speech.But you can’t whine, and you can’t cry.The point is, he did not say it on that occasion.But the—I am really, you know, not very forgiving in what I think was a kick to the gut.… I just think it was—it was dirty pool.And it went against all the things that Joe is, which is honorable and a good and decent person.It was a—it was not a nice thing to do.
… But it turns out that it was a blessing, because if Joe had stayed in the race, I think he’d probably be dead, because of the aneurysm that occurred in February.2And if he were in the race, he would have been in February—in Iowa in February, in a small plane, going from county to county, and not have access to the best medical care, which—I mean, it would take a longer time to get to the best medical care.Right here, this aneurysm happened in Delaware, and we could get him to Walter Reed in a—in a matter of a couple hours.And that saved his life.
2
New York Times: Biden Resting After Surgery For Second Brain Aneurysm
So he—I think his real character was shown, not in—well, first of all, in his standing up and accepting that he made a mistake—he should have quoted—and not blaming anybody else.And then the day that he said he was—he ceased the campaign, he walked out the door of the room in the Senate and walked down the hall and walked back into the Senate Committee hearing for the confirmation of Judge Bork to the Supreme Court. …
Joe Biden as Vice President
2008, Obama chooses your brother as his vice president.Why Joe?Why does Joe agree to do it, to take on that job?
Well, first, because again, the—Joe has always wanted to—it’s important for Joe to have purpose and to make a difference.I mean, he really is a quintessential public servant.I mean, that doesn’t make him better or worse than anybody else.It’s just who he is.And he was, at the time that Barack Obama—Sen. Obama, at that time—asked Joe to be his running mate, Joe really had the best seat in town, the best table in Washington, of being chair of the Foreign Relations.Joe is a Senate man.He loves the Senate.He loves the tradition of the Senate.He loves the honor of the handshake that would exist.He loves working across the aisle.
And he wasn’t sure if he would be more effective in the legislation that he wanted, and the Democratic Party wanted, if he would be more effective being as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee or being vice president.The second thing was, in real-life terms, it’s like he said, “Heck, Val,” he said, “I’ve never worked for anybody.I don’t know how—I don’t know how good I’m going to be at that.So I’ve got to think about that.”
But when he made his decision to run and to go with—and that he thought that he could be more effective as vice president, he had already squared away in his mind that he understood that Barack Obama was president, Joe was vice president.Joe’s job as vice president was to give—make judgment calls, give Joe’s best advice, best thinking to the president.The president then could take some of it or leave some of it or take none of it.But when the president was the man who made the decision, then it was Joe’s job to back him 100% when he walked out of that Oval Office and shut the door.Joe and President Obama were completely in sync.
That doesn’t always happen.That’s what you call an honorable, trustworthy relationship.And Joe understood the job of vice president and—and wore it well.
What were some of the things that he took on for Obama that he brought to the vice presidency, things that you look at, that he was very proud of?What were some of the things that he brought to that office that should be understood?
Well, I don’t—I don’t think that he brought anything outside the orb that wasn’t already going to be in it.But marriage equality was one of them.I mean, that—that came in.And it wasn’t that—that office said that President Obama wasn’t going to do that.Joe just brought— brought it in.He continued—the other thing that was most important to Joe was the Violence Against Women Act, which he had legislated in the ’80s, and he continued to move that forward.
Joe has the—was the head of the Recovery Act.The Recovery Act was responsible for the largest amount of money and resources going into clean energy that the country has ever had.Joe brought the office a knowledge, a firsthand personal relationship with many, many foreign leaders.He was a young guy.He grew up with these foreign leaders.So they—they trusted Joe.They trusted his word.President Obama trusted Joe with—with bringing—with bringing Obama’s—the president’s policies into—into the foreground, and also giving him his—his clear advice. …
Beau Biden
Certainly the love between Vice President Biden and his sons and the rest of the family is quite clear for everyone to see.But Beau was such an interesting mix of talents and seemed to be following along after his father’s footsteps in politics and was so amazing at it.Talk a little bit about that relationship.Talk a little bit about having to deal with that tragedy, when he got sick and then when he died.But talk about it in a way that it helps to tell who your brother is, the way he deals with tragedy, the things he learns and takes along from these horrific things that happen to people, sometimes more horrific for some people than others.But talk about Beau and that relationship and sort of how he has evolved, to some extent, or what that adds to the mix of this man who might be president in a time of absolute crises.
Well, Beau was a spectacular human being.He was his father’s child in that he was a public servant.He was the attorney general, as you know, and went to serve in Iraq and came back with medals of distinction and was on his way to planning—running for governor.He wanted to be governor, not senator.And when he got this death sentence, really, of stage 4 glioblastoma, it was—it was devastating to everybody who loved him and knew him, and to his father and his mom and his brother and sister.Hunt is Beau’s alter ego.I mean, they were a year and a day apart.And if Joe wasn’t with him every single day, Hunter was, in this illness, and his wife, Hallie, and their two kids.
So Joe had—Beau’s biggest concern, when he was ill, was that his mom and dad would continue and to move forward with their lives and stay engaged.Jill stayed very much engaged in teaching with her students at the community college, and Joe had to continue to work as vice president.But every spare minute that he had, he was at the bedside with Beau.
And you can’t—I don’t—you know, I think I mentioned before that my mom said out of something bad, everything—something good happens.It’s a real long time for me, personally, to reconcile the good of Beau’s dying at such a young age.I mean, I wanted to—you know, I’m the Catholic schoolgirl.I wanted—I wanted to take rocks and break the stained-glass windows.
My brother, though, who has a hole in his heart, committed to Beau, promised Beau that he would not fade away.You know, when grief overwhelms us, a natural instinct is, you know, we cower, like, you know, “Just leave me alone.”And Joe—I mean Beau—knew that Joe would still continue to take care of the family and be the head of the family, so to speak, but he had to continue to have purpose and to make a difference, and continue his work in making America better, and what now we, again, we’ve said returning the soul of America.They weren’t Beau’s words.But he said: “Dad, you’ve just got to stay engaged.You’ve got to keep fighting the good fight.”
Right now, I think that the reason that Joe is the—it’s the right time for my brother to be president, it’s because of his decency, his empathy, his intellect and his competency; because right now, I think that character is on the ballot.This election is about character.It’s not just about Joe’s character; it’s about your character, and it’s about the character of America.And what Joe, and the reason that Joe got involved in this, was because he wanted to work towards restoring the soul of America, to build up the middle class, because if we don’t have a prosperous middle class, with jobs, good union jobs, we don’t—we don’t have a ladder up for the less advantaged, and the wealthy are going to do fine.And God bless them, but we have a whole society to take care of.
And he wanted to unite the country.And when I say “unite the country,” it’s not pie in the sky.But we must, must—we are so polarized at this time and at this crisis that we’ve got to bring some of this—some of—we’ve got to bring it together, or we will no longer have a United States of America.It’s a democracy.It won’t function unless we get and we stay involved.
The Choice Between Biden and Trump
The title of this program is called The Choice 2020.So the question we always ask everybody, or as many as we can, is, so what is the choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump?
It’s a choice between a man—a man of character and principles, a man of decency who has empathy, who’s intelligent, and who has a tremendous competency to bring the best minds, the best people in this country, into a union, so that we can govern like the United States of America.The choice between my brother Joe, I think in every one of those adjectives that I used, is obvious.I do not—I leave the descriptions—and Donald Trump, everybody knows who he is.I am not going to sit here and call him names, like he does.But I don’t think—I don’t think he’s very—I don’t think he’s very bright.And I don’t—I certainly don’t abide or—not approve, not as a schoolmarm, but appreciate the disrespect that he shows to anyone who he doesn’t like or he thinks is in his way. …
No matter what, the campaigns have changed.This is a virtual campaign.It’s so different than anything that we’ve ever had in our country.But there’s one principle that exists in every single campaign.And you choose—it’s relationships.You choose, particularly your president, you choose your president because you trust him or her.And campaigns are built on relationships.It’s like, “Ah, I see, I believe, I trust.”It doesn’t mean—the people don’t have to like everything or know everything that you think, but what’s important is that they have to know and think that you care.
So I think that is the—that’s the defining line.It’s character and who the trust that Joe Biden cares about you and will take care of your family as much as he would take care of our family.Our first campaign slogan was, “Joe Biden, County Council, For All Our Families.”And that’s where we are today, should be for all our families.
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