The FRONTLINE Interviews
Vince D’Anna
Biden Campaign Aide
Vince D’Anna worked as an aide to President Biden for 20 years, first during the 1972 campaign and later in his U.S. Senate office. D’Anna advised the president’s son Beau when Beau was attorney general of Delaware.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on March 15, 2024, prior to Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Biden’s Early Political Career
Let's start at the beginning.When did you first meet Joe Biden? And what was he like?
I first met Joe Biden when he became a county councilman.I was a planner working for the planning department, and so we had county business together, and we actually developed a fast friendship that, shortly after he was in office as the county councilman, he called me into his office, and he said to me, "I want you to help me.I want to run for another office." And I said, "Well, what do you want to run for?" And he said, "The United States Senate." I said, "You're crazy." He said, "Will you help me?" I said, "Sure, I'll help you."
Anyway, that was the start of it.And we were able in a short period of time, basically a year, to use some of the issues that we were able to develop in the County Council to actually run in the United States Senate race—the state Coastal Zone Act, and there was some highway construction, that federal highway construction that he took on.And he was able to show what he was worth very early on, as far as opposing this highway construction project.And the Coastal Zone Act was the really big thing.Delaware felt threatened by—they had one refinery, and Shell Oil wanted to build another refinery down further—and they felt that once Shell Oil got there, that the whole coastal zone was going to go.
So he passed legislation to the council to—on zoning legislation to prohibit it, while at the same time, the governor, the Republican governor, at the same time passed the state Coastal Zone Act.
Anyway, that's how we got—and we then started the campaign, his Senate campaign.
Let me go back to when you first meet him.What is he like?Who is he as an up-and-coming politician?…
He was different than most of the politicians that had come by, particularly the County Council.He clearly wasn't long to be at County Council, as it all came to pass.He was only two years on the County Council.But he was smart, fresh, ambitious.He knew he wanted to be president then.
Did he tell you that back then?
Yeah, I'm sure he did.No, he may not have, but if he didn't, he acted it.
There are these stories where there's a nun who taught him who says that when he was 7, he said, "I want to be president."
I believe it, yeah.
What is it about him.you think, that he had that ambition from such an early part of either of his life or of his career?
First of all, he was very interested in world affairs.He had a real interest in foreign policy, and so that was kind of a natural to want to be a federal officer, to be in the Senate, and eventually run for president.
… So you said that he stood out from the other politicians in county politics?Help me understand how he was different.
Well, he seemed like he was smarter, but also he seemed—he was young, young and fresh and new ideas.At that time, politics was—politicians, people that ran for office tended to be, even that ran for the state legislature or County Council, tended to be probably 10 or 15 years older than Joe.
He seems like he knew what he wanted to do from the very beginning.
Oh, no, he knew where he was going.
So you talked about that first race against Boggs and that he told you that he was interested for a Senate race, that he was interested in running, and you said he was crazy.Tell me about that.Why was that crazy?
Well, Delaware right now is a solid blue state.Whoever wins the primary wins the—there is virtually no general election for most of the state.With the exception of the southern, southern and western part of the state in Sussex County, which tends to be Trump country, but other than that, the rest of the state is solid blue.
But at the time, at the time, Delaware was kind of jump ball.If you had—the good people won.You had to be a good candidate to win.Interestingly about Boggs, Boggs seemed to be invincible.He had won, like, 29 straight years of elections in different elections, and very well liked, very nice person, great person … and seemed to be unbeatable.But Boggs really didn't want to run.
And the story goes that Pete du Pont, who was congressman and became governor, and Hal Haskell, another member of the du Pont family, who at that point in time was mayor of Wilmington, both wanted to succeed Boggs, and it was thought to be that it would be a battle that would rip the family and the party apart.
So apparently, the story goes, they convinced Boggs to run one more time.Well, you never want to run if you don't want to run, and it doesn't usually work very well.
But anyway, they just assumed, and I think reasonably so, that Boggs was so strong that he'd beat any Democrat that came up.And as a result, President Biden got the nomination basically because nobody else wanted it.I mean, nobody.No one thought he would win.But the—
Did he think he would win?Did he?Or was he crazy, or he just wanted—
No, he believed in himself.He really believed in himself.He really believed that he could beat Boggs.My guess is he felt that he wouldn't do any harm to himself if he ran a good race.It was kind of a win/win situation.So off we went.
What was the campaign like?
It was a great campaign.As I said, not only candidates, the whole campaign, people that were involved in politics at that time tended to be older.This campaign were basically all young people.In fact, Joe's the oldest there.His brother and sister were even younger than he was, as was Neilia [Hunter Biden].And so you had basically these young people generating other young people, and housewives.
You remember housewives?Coffees were the big thing, and Neilia and Valerie [Biden Owens] and Mrs.Biden, they hosted these coffees.They hosted the coffees in the daytime because in the '70s, women weren't working.Most women were home.So it was a whole different time.That was a big part of the campaign, enlisting these housewives.So that was part of it.
The other part, they had lots of young people to deliver literature.A media consultant came up with this eight-page paper he apparently had used a couple other places, but it was really new.These were eight-page issue papers, and they were—we didn't mail them.They were all hand-delivered.And I don't know how many we delivered per thing, but a lot.We had a lot of young people out there delivering this literature.
So we were able to do the campaign a lot, get his name recognition up fairly cheaply with basically young labor.
Was it unusual to have his family so involved his?
Yes.Yeah, I think so, particularly young family.This wasn't the older 50-year-old brother.This is the younger 26-year-old brother, or 25, whatever Jimmy was about that time.And Valerie was just a little older than Jimmy.So it was kind of exciting, because it was so different.
People have said that in some ways that Joe Biden may have been modeling himself and the family off of the Kennedys.
No!I don't believe that.I don't think so.One of the fundamental differences was, is they were rich, which makes a big difference.There are a lot of things you can do if you're rich that you can't do.Joe Biden had to figure out how to use young labor to deliver literature; Ted Kennedy wouldn't have had to do that.There's probably some similarities just because of the closeness of the families and all, but I don't think it's analogous.
You didn't see them as an inspiration for—because they're both Irish-Catholic and—
No, I don't think so, no.I didn't myself personally, I didn't.I don't know what his view was, but I didn't.I think he had surely an admiration for Ted Kennedy, but I don't think he saw himself, patterned himself after Ted Kennedy.I don't think that's—
Tell me about Neilia and the kids.Were they part of the campaign?
The kids were toddlers.
Is Neilia part of the campaign?
Neilia was certainly part of it.Wasn't a part of the campaign I was involved in, but Neilia was certainly part of the housewives thing, and she was kind of the rudder keeping everything straight.
What was she like?
Very nice person.She was very smart, capable.And she and Valerie both, and even later Jill, they were really, just really smart, competent young women that were attractive.And they also had what a late friend of mine used to refer to as a gentle heart.They just radiated goodness and grace.And that is really good stuff in a campaign, trust me.
What was it like running in Delaware at that time?You said that it was right on the edge of—it wasn't a sure thing for the Democrats.
No, because it was still a company state.The DuPont company was the largest employer.And the du Pont family was much more viable than it is now.It was one of the richest families in the country, which it no longer is, and they still controlled a lot of the Republican Party.
Do you think it shapes who Joe Biden will become, to come from Delaware or from a state that is different in north and south?
Yeah.You can't assume anything.You couldn't assume anything.And the interesting thing was his first reelection was, it was '78.It was a horrible year.He was Jimmy Carter's campaign chairman, and we got a lot of stuff for Delaware as a result of that.Obviously we got a lot of the bad.We were in the throes of stagflation, high gas prices.In fact, at one point, gasoline was rationed.You'd have to go every other day to fill.You could only go on days depending on your license number.
And what really was defining for that campaign was the federal court ordered massive, massive busing as a result of desegregation.They desegregated 80% of New Castle County, which is the largest county.Probably 75%, 70% of the state was bused, was subject to a busing order.Well, we had that to deal with during the campaign.And not just because Carter and the hostage crisis, where we had Ted Koppel coming on every day, with 190 days of the Iranian crisis.We had the Panama Canal issue, which was a huge issue at that time.We got probably more mail on that than we got on anything else.And just for good measure, we had some right-to-work people that were interested.
So it was really kind of a horrible time.The good thing that happened, the person who wanted to run was the head of the desegregation organization.… I can't remember the name of it.And he decided he wanted to run for the Senate.Well, du Pont family and the DuPont company and the regular Republicans didn't particularly want what would be the equivalent of a Donald Trump kind of candidate running, so they primaried him, and they primaried him with a southern Delaware farmer, and he ran for the Senate.And it was just an ugly campaign.
And I think it was good for Joe actually to have that kind of hard campaign right out of the box.I think he learned not to assume anything.
In any of those races, in the first race or six years later in that race, when he's trying to appeal to some people who might be in an urban or liberal area, other people who might be in the southern part of the state, what is it about how he campaigns and his politics?
I think that goes back to the first campaign.In the first campaign, where he started, he started as I said, Sussex County.Now it's Republican-run, but Sussex County, which is the lower county where Rehoboth is, it was basically a rural county with lots of farms and towns, lots of small towns and farms and no suburban area there, virtually no suburban area at all.
And so Joe went down there and basically and got those people to be—and they were very conservative.I mean, this was rural, rural Democrat—not Dixiecrat, but close.And so Joe got the confidence of those people early on.He went to them first.And as a result, we just had lots of, through the years, after he got elected, support from lots of people that you wouldn't normally expect to be enthusiastic about Joe Biden.And they were really enthusiastic about him, these southern—
And so then, then it got to be easy because he went to, after the next one, the suburban people that he was very close to; he was very much alike.And as I said, it was a different time.Women were in a different place.And I think he just kind of really fit the situation.
Can you take me to that first race?You said it was crazy for him to run.And take me to the moment when he wins.What was it like?
Oh, it was unreal.It was just a sense of the impossible had been accomplished.Little did we know that didn't last long.
But what was there an election party and—?
Yeah.And Valerie actually had the audacity to get the Hotel du Pont, which was the Republican stronghold—the Hotel du Pont was owned by the DuPont company, basically for the du Pont family.And so she got the ballroom for the Hotel du Pont for the victory party.And it was unbelievable.It was unreal.
And Biden that night and the feeling that all of you young people—
Yeah, yeah.The world changed.The world literally changed overnight.No one expected it, including a lot of the people in the campaign.I thought we had a good chance of winning.Of course, I was closer to the campaign and had some sense of the polling and all.
The Death of Biden’s Wife and Daughter
...As you said, that amazing victory party and the feeling of it doesn't last for very long.Can you help me understand what happens and the tragedy?
Just an overwhelming sense of tragedy and sadness.It was just incomprehensible, almost anything that—everyone ended up with a hole in their heart, probably permanently.God knows how he dealt with it.He shared with us how he did, but just, you know, he seriously considered not taking the Senate seat.
… How did you hear about the car crash?
Someone called me and told me.There was nothing—at that point there was really nothing to do or see or say.We all went to church and to the graveyard, and that was it.
What was he like in that period?He's got the boys to take care of, and he's got this new job.Just help me understand what he was like.
As I said, he seriously considered not taking the job and basically feeling that his number one responsibility at that point was to make sure that those two boys were taken care of as best they could, as best he could without Neilia.And God bless Valerie.The difference there was Valerie.Valerie was the one that held the whole thing together.
How so?
Well, she lived with them, lived with the boys and took care of the boys.He could go to Washington and feel that they were OK.
Biden’s Early Years in the Senate
… And why does he make the decision to keep the seat and to go into politics?
I think that the people there, I think Mansfield particularly, I think the people in Washington basically encouraged them.And I think they genuinely felt that it would be better for him, actually.They clearly wanted him there, but I think they genuinely felt it would be better for him that he kept it, and Neilia would have wanted him to have kept it.
… He talks about in that period the Senate sort of becoming a family in a way and finding some meaning in his job.
Well, remember, the Senate was a really different place then.It was like a family down there.It's different.It's very different than now.The difference then is the Republicans were nice people then.
And did you see that in him, that sort of reverence for the Senate?
I think it goes back to what I told you about, him going to the older people in Sussex County.He had a great respect for position and the elderly and these older people.And I think that basically was one of the things that worked in the Senate for him, particularly with some of the—you know the stories, with some of the Republican senators, with [segregationist John] Stennis (D-Miss.).He developed legitimately good relationships with people that you wouldn't expect.
...When you would watch him interact with other people, how does he do it?How does he connect with people and build a relationship?
First of all, he starts off liking people, which is a big advantage.As I said, there's a kind of respect that goes when he deals with people, and I think he's just one of those people that—they call it charisma; I don't know what it is.But when Joe Biden goes in and talks to somebody, he usually comes out a lot better than he went in.And the same thing with campaigning.You throw Joe Biden out in a crowd of 50 people, an hour later, he's going to walk away with 40 of them.
The other part of the myth, and you could tell me if this is true, about Joe Biden, is riding back from Washington to Delaware on the train and talking to people along the way.How important was that?
I think it was very important.The important part is that he came back every night to be with those kids.That was the most important part.But it gave him an opportunity to talk to other Delawareans that were going back and forth to Washington.That was helpful.And it gave him an opportunity to work on the train.
But the train wasn't all a box of chocolates.The train wasn't as good as it is now.I rode that train with him.And there were a lot of four-hour trips.
What do you mean, it's not like a box of chocolates?Just help me understand what it's like riding—
Well, now you got concrete rails and all, and Amtrak.When we had basically, in the '70s and '80s, those old Amtrak trains, and the track wasn't very good.And so a lot of times the trip to Washington could be a couple of hours, or a train would be an hour and a half late.
But when he ran the last time, there was questions, especially from some on the left. They said, "You were friends with all these people in the Senate.How were you friends with Strom Thurmond and these very conservative or segregationists?" What's the answer to that?
Respect.As I said before, respect.He respected them.He respected where they were, who they were.And like I said, he likes people.It was easy for him to develop relationships.And they weren't unusual; they were—there was nothing stilted about any relationship with somebody that was 30 years older than him.
As a senator and later, Joe Biden would sometimes be known as a long-winded guy who was sort of gaffe-prone.Was that part of the Joe Biden that you knew going all the way back then?
Well, he tends to speak long.He likes to tell you everything he knows in one breath.But other than that, no.And it basically works.That's the important part: It works.
When I was a staffperson down there, I staffed him at the Public Works Committee for a year, and one of my jobs would have to be, after he spoke on the floor, I'd have to go correct the record.And I mean, there were some James Joyce kinds of stream-of-consciousness sentences in there that were hard to punctuate.
What is it?They make sense when you're listening to it, but then—
Yeah, that's what I say, but that's what I'm saying.I had to go look at the record and say, "It sounded a lot better than it looks here."
But was that part of his charm?
I think so.Yeah, I think so, yeah.
Help me understand how, because now of course there's questions about he's misspoken, or he's stepped on—
He did a lot of that then when he was 30.But it worked.It worked a little easier when he was doing it then.And there was less spotlight on you at that point, too.
Do you think that as the youngest senator, 99 of the other senators, 99% of the other senators are older than him when he arrives, because he barely meets the constitutional requirements.Do you think there was any sense of being overwhelmed or insecure when he's first a senator?
From Joe's standpoint?No.He was extremely confident that he could do it.And I think the first year, there was—that kind of stress, I don't think, was there.They were basically taking care of him the first year.
Biden's 1987 Run for President
… So what made him get into the race in '87 and to decide to—I mean, then he's relatively young. … And how was he presenting himself and selling himself?
I'm trying to remember.Foreign policy.He was on Foreign Affairs for the first since '70, I think since '72.And he was on Judiciary.He was chairman of the Judiciary Committee.I think he had a reasonable sense of accomplishment.But I think he sold himself on the idea that—and tried to sell the world on the idea that he had the kind of experience that—he was young but still had, at the time, basically 16 years of Senate experience.
The thing that starts to trip him up, at least, is the Kinnock scandal.What was it that attracted him to that?He cites it initially, but there was something about that story that he was drawn to.
I think it was the story of the, “first person in my family to go to college,” kind of story.While Kinnock was English, it was kind of the American dream.And so I think that kind of had—that parallel was there....
When he doesn't cite Kinnock that one time and it becomes a story, what was the reaction on the campaign from Sen.Biden?
There was a big concern, discussion, as to whether or not the campaign was still viable and whether he should get out, and whether, for his own purposes, whether he could win.And so he came to the conclusion, thank God, that he needed to get out, because had he not, I mean, with the aneurysm, God knows what would have happened, certainly.1
1
Washington Post: Biden once nearly died of an aneurysm.
It takes him a little while to get out.And you can see in those press conferences, it looks like a little bit of anger and frustration at—
At himself, I think.He didn't blame anybody else but himself.And you can throw Mike Dukakis involved.2He can share some of the blame also, and whoever his staff person was.I don't remember right now.
2
Washington Post: Joseph Biden's Plagiarism; Michael Dukakis's 'Attack Video' – 1988
But it was just a great sense of frustration, I guess.
Yeah.Yeah, it was, and because things were going so well, things were really shaping up that he could see the road to the presidency.
One of the other things from that campaign is that there's a moment about his law school transcript and how he portrays it, and there's an interaction with a voter where he seems sort of angry to be accused of not being that smart.Did those types of things really offend him the way that they seemed to?
Yeah, well, he wishes he hadn't done it.Clearly that's part of it.That's part of the high-wire act.You just really have to maintain your composure all the time.You don't get any breaks, no slips.
But it's almost something that, when you look back on it, almost makes him human, that he's not, at that point, somebody who's just locked down and in politician mode.He does take things personally.Is that right?
Yeah, I think so.But don't forget, let's overlay the Bork hearings on top of that.He was responsible at that time for taking on Bork.And so in trying to deal with these fires that are going off in the campaign, in different parts of the campaign, and to maintain—I mean, taking on Bork was a monstrous endeavor and responsibility.And it was probably, in my view, it's probably one of the most important things he did in the Senate, his whole time in the Senate.And God knows what the world would look like had we had Judge Bork for 30 or 40 years, because Bork would have died in the seat.I guarantee you, he would never retire.
It's amazing that those two things were happening at the same time.If they had made a miniseries about Joe Biden, the two of them going off at the same time is amazingly dramatic.
And yeah, I was really involved.I got involved, fortunately.I was fortunate to be involved in the Bork thing.And it was just really, really, really exciting and meaningful, what he did and how he did it.He was masterful.
Do you think that Biden considers that—you said that you thought it was one of the most important—
I'm sure he considers it, because he has great reverence for the court.So I'm sure he considers that one of the more meaningful things that he did in the Senate.
The Clarence Thomas Confirmation Hearings
Of course the other hearing that he has to grapple with is the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearing.
Oh, that was ugly.That really was.And you know, it's one of those—back to the civil rights thing, one thing Sen.Biden didn't want to be was the guy who kept the Black guy from being Supreme Court justice unfairly.So he had that burden to carry—a personal burden, his own personal values to deal with.
The whole thing was just kind of unbelievable.There are great moments.When Thomas stood up and talked about “high-tech lynching,” that probably—that really put the Democrats on their heels.And they still almost beat him.But it was close.
And for Joe Biden to be sitting there, the hearings he's conducting, and first to hear Thomas say that it's a high-tech lynching, how difficult a moment is that for him?
I don't know.I've never talked to him about it.… Thomas couldn't have ever done anything better for himself than he did in those 10 or 12 words.
But then there's also the criticism of the other side, of the women's groups, of the women in the House who said—
Yeah.Whether or not having the women testify or not would have been dispositive, I don't think it would have been.But yeah, you can argue that.
I think, fairly, you can argue that Anita Hill didn't get a fair enough hearing.And I think if he regrets anything, my guess would be that....
She didn't want a public testimony.She wanted to make sure that Thomas didn't get on the court, but she didn't really want to testify publicly.And Sen.Biden said, "I can't possibly do that." So then we were off to the races.She's testifying.
So from your perspective, what happened, and how does he, when he looks back on that—
I don't know.You have to ask him how he looks back on it.My guess would be, as I said, I think with great regret.I think he hoped that he could have done more.I'm not sure he could have done more.Thomas got on the court, and she felt like she was unfairly treated.That's not a good place to be politically—or any way, forget politically.
And for somebody with presidential ambitions, and obviously from what we know about him, those presidential ambitions never really went away, did they?
No, no, they never went away.
Biden’s 2008 Run for President
It's remarkable the times that he has run—'87, and we're leading up to the 2007-2008 cycle.What do you think brings him into the presidential race yet again?And how is he different at that point than he was in 1987?
I think probably wiser, and I think he approached it in a more measured way.There was kind of a rolling, in 1987 going into the '88 campaign, it was kind of like a rolling enthusiasm, that everything looked like it was aligning well.And in the later game, nothing looked like it was perfect.You had really star-power candidates out there.
Yeah.He was running against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Yeah, it wasn't Gary Hart and Mike Dukakis.There's a big difference between Mike Dukakis and Gary Hart and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
And then, because the very beginning of the campaign is the so-called gaffe, right, about Obama, where he says—
Yeah, clean and fresh.3
3
Yeah.Did it feel like déjà vu from—
It was kind of déjà vu, but it was more just a term of speech.He was kind of saying, "Here comes a guy that's attractive, that has no baggage,” and it came off as almost, well, as a racist kind of comment, which it never—particularly if you know Joe, it was never intended to be anything like that, or there would never be any implication of any of that.He actually probably, at first probably, had a problem understanding what he was being criticized for.
Biden as Vice President
… Have you talked to President Biden about the decision to accept the place on the ticket with Barack Obama?
No, I didn't.It didn't surprise me.No, I didn't talk to him about it.He wants to be at the place where he can do the best and the most.The only condition he put on it was that he's the last guy in the room.If Obama didn't agree to that, I guarantee he wouldn't have run for vice president.
Because it sounds like it would be a difficult transition for somebody who's been a senator and say what they want, and then they have to go be second.
But it's difficult if you're the usual kind of vice presidents that we've had, if you're Spiro Agnew or something like that.You're not "sort of the president." You're the person that we hope never becomes the president.They were his terms, on his terms: "If this isn't meaningful, I don't want to do it.I'd rather be in the Senate; I can do more in the Senate."
Beau Biden’s Illness and Death
… There's these moments in Biden's life where things seem to be going well, and then there's tragedy, and it's during the Obama years that Beau gets sick. Let me ask you first, what was his connection like with the boys, going back to after the accident?
He raised his children like you'd want to raise your children, and they turned out the way you'd want your children to turn out.Hunter, unfortunately, took a bad path, but Hunter is genuinely a very nice person, very respectful, smart, just, like I said, fell for addiction.But Beau was great, and Ashley also.They were just great children.They were kind of like model kind of children, how you'd want your kids to turn out.And they had great respect and love for their father and mother.
And the stories about him always picking up the phone when they called, talking to them constantly.
That's true.
Tell me about that.
That's true.… And whether that is—and I don't think it is.I think he would have done it anyway, but it could be, some would argue it might be overcompensation for the tragic start.
For a few years at least, he was a single parent raising those boys.
Well, Valerie was there for a good while, which helped.And then Jill came along, which was great.And she's great.She was perfect.
Tell me about Beau in Delaware politics, because President Biden has said that he saw a bright future for him either in the Senate or even in the White House.
I think he saw Beau following in his footsteps.He had great hopes for Beau, and we all did.And it was just tragic.It was just terrible.
What was Beau like as a politician, as somebody in Delaware?
He was a lot like his father.Very much like his father.He was very smart, personable.People generally liked him.If you met with Beau, same when you met with Joe, you came away better than you went in.
He said that Beau had the best parts of him and not the bad parts.What do you make of that, and how were they different?
I think they were a lot alike.They both had a little bit of a temper.I think they were a lot alike.I don't think they were a whole lot different.
And when you got word about Beau's illness, how did that—
Oh, it was terrible.Just another hole in your heart. Just one of those things that you can't do anything about, and you just fall back on your experiences and your religion.
And in a moment like that, as a friend of the vice president, is there a feeling of helplessness?There's not much you can do when he's facing a tragedy.
There's nothing you can do.That's the problem.You just got to gut it out.And unfortunately, Joe's had too many of those that have to gut out.
How difficult was that period for him, dealing with the illness and Beau?
I wasn't close to that other than what I knew, but the problem with that is that that goes on for a long time.You fight, and you hope, and then you run out of runway.
… But what did you think when you saw the Rose Garden ceremony where he announces he wasn't going to run for president?
I kind of expected it that he wouldn't.Just guessing that you can only take—a person can only take so much stress, and the stress of a presidential campaign on top of that.The difference is, he knows what it is.It's not like he hadn't been there before.He knows what it costs.
Did it feel like that that was going to be the end of—
… That's the craziness of the presidency thing.You just never know how it shakes itself out.I thought, just considering your age and—you don't get many opportunities to grab the brass ring, to even get close to it.And so when you're in your 70s and you don't have the shot, you put it off again, you're not going to get a shot, yeah.I guess that he wasn’t in his 70s then; I guess he was close.
… Why do you think he makes the decision to run in 2019?As we said, it seemed like his moment might have passed, and Donald Trump is the president, and he makes the decision once again.
Because I think he felt he was the only one [who] could save the world.Literally, literally.If anybody didn't think that beating Trump was important—and he really felt he was the only one that could do it.And I'm not sure he—he may have been right.
… He writes before that campaign a sort of unusual, I don't know if it's a campaign book, but <i>Promise Me, Dad</i>, about his vice presidency and about his son's death and about the conversation that he has.How do you think that that all ties into his decision to run for the presidency?
I think that was part of it.I think that was an enabling part of it.That was something that encouraged him to consider it.And as I said, I felt he was the only one that could beat Trump, and I was more than glad that he ran.
Let me go back for one second, back between that period when he's vice president and he decides to run.What was Joe Biden like, a guy who had been in office since 1970, if you go to the County Council, who had had politics as his life, what was he like not running and not being in office?
I don't think he was comfortable, because here you had a guy that was probably the best-trained person to be president ever.He basically had 50 years of Senate experience with world leaders, with crime, with some of his accomplishments.
Remember, Joe Biden passed the assault weapons ban, and the Republicans put it back in 10 years later.Same thing with Violence Against Women, that legislation.I think he has a legacy that he should be more than proud of, even not being president, even before being president.And like I said, I think he probably considers himself the best-trained person ever to run for president, and one that he felt genuinely at that point that he could win.And the stakes were enormously high.We saw what Trump was, and the fun was just beginning.
Biden Runs Again in 2020
… So you have known Joe Biden for a long time, and some people we've talked to have said that they were surprised by the campaign in 2020 because of the way he framed it, as a conflict between light and darkness, the soul of America.
It was.… I saw him when he dedicated the Wilmington office to run for president a month ago or two months ago, a couple of months ago.And I said to him, "I guess you get to save the world twice." The stakes are really high, higher than—without hyperbole, the stakes are as high as they could possibly be.We have a guy that’s promising to shorten all rights, to run basically as a dictator, to eliminate civil service.
Did it feel like he finally found his moment?In '87, you said he ran on his experience, and he'd run on his experience before.Now he's found something that's more than just his experience.It's about literally saving democracy.
I don't think he ever thought that would be the reason he was running for president.I think he was running for president to have his idea to be the best president he could possibly be.But what's happened is that history called.And it was important for him to win, and particularly—I'm not sure that he wouldn't have asked for a recount after he looked around after he won.… I think he did a fantastic job, particularly the first two years as being president.
Biden’s Presidency
… You've said that you thought he did a great job in those first couple of years.Who was the Joe Biden that you saw as president who came into office?How was he?Did he surprise you as president?
No.I thought he would do just what he did.I thought he would grab hold of it.You're going to make some mistakes.You don't do it all perfect, but he did the important stuff perfect.I mean, he really did, the pandemic particularly.And it's not like we had a really cooperative Congress or anything to deal with.It was a very difficult thing to deal with.And to come out of that into this fantastic economy that we're in right now is just astonishing.
I guess one of the stumbles or whatever in that first year, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the images of the refugees.
Well, withdrawing wasn't the problem; it's how we withdrew.It's just hard.It's just really hard to get your arms around the whole government.How do we know the State Department was going to take forever trying to get these people out?I don't know.Like I said, I don't know any more than what I read.But does he wish he did it better?I'm sure.
… Do you recognize that Biden in the response to the other big foreign policy thing, the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine?Do you see the Biden that you knew?
Yes, it was great.It was great.He had full confidence in what he was doing, and it's come off well.I just saw there are two polls where he forged ahead of Trump today; I saw that.
… For Joe Biden, who came into the Senate that we were talking about, where there was a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy, and he was on that committee, he's now in a Washington that seems very different, where even funding for Ukraine is difficult.When you look at that Joe Biden now in this Washington compared to the Washington that he arrived in, how different is what he's navigating as president?
Oh, it's demonstrably different.And you have to be—unfortunately, you have to be contentious, which is not his nature.His nature is more to find common ground.But unfortunately, it's now we're into the world of the baseball bat.You have to beat up those kind of people in the House to get them to do anything.
But incidentally, even with the body changing as much as it did, that was one of his big roles in the Obama White House, was the Senate and the House and his relationships there.And that served Obama well.
And he does get a lot of legislation through.
Yeah, and that's why I said in those first two years, I don't know how he did it.
You said that there's some polls now that show him going ahead, but I think that the White House feels a certain level of frustration.
And well they should.I mean, God, any president would die for these economic numbers, any president.They're better numbers—we go back decades to repeat these numbers.And somehow the American people are bitching that eggs went up because of the chicken virus or something.And also I think, from their standpoint, the American people, this sizeflation, or whatever the hell he calls it, with Snickers bars, I think that's true.And I think people recognize that.But there's also a lot of gouging.There was a lot of price gouging that's not related to supply chain or anything; that they raised the prices, and they stayed.And now they're making—and I think people see that, and I think that's the one shortcoming we have now, and that's how you deal with that reality, because right now, inflation is really not that bad.… We're running at 3%, and gas prices are down.We got Donald Trump talking about "Drill, baby, drill," and we produce more oil than anybody else in the world.We've been net exporters since Joe Biden took office.We're net exporters of oil.I mean, how much drilling does he want to do?
Biden Runs for a Second Term
… Do you think he ever had a doubt that he would run for a second term?
Did I have a doubt?Yeah, but with Trump, as long as Trump was going to be the candidate, I think he's always going to run.I think if Trump weren't the candidate, I don't know.I don't know whether he'd run or not if Trump wasn't.If he thought—assuming that the world works like it's supposed to work, and we had Trump locked up early, Merrick Garland got off his ass for the first two years and prosecuted this thing, and Trump wasn't going to be the—I don't know whether Joe would have run.4
So why?Why is it that you think that with Trump there—
Because I think it created an imperative that he had to run.I don't think he felt he was given a choice.I don't think he had a choice.He just felt that Trump, unless he—he didn't think—he looked around; he didn't see anybody else that he thought was going to win.
And I don't know; I didn't talk to him about that.That's just my knowing him.That's just my guess, is he just felt that the world cannot endure another Trump administration.
As the questions of age and mental acuity started to bubble up in the politics, this is the guy you've known for all these years, how did you evaluate it?Looking at him, talking to him and hearing—
Remember, I'm four years older than Joe.So yeah, I wouldn't have any problem with it.… He's no different than he was 30 or 40 years ago.Every once in a while, the right word doesn't come out, and that is part of age, but it's damn sure not fatal.I mean, Donald Trump, he couldn't pick out Marla Maples.5
… I think where Joe really gets a bad rap, I think it's more the way the press covers him as opposed to the way they cover Trump.Trump, there's a whole—you go on YouTube, you can find 500 things where Trump, where if Joe Biden did it, it'd be breaking news.
And it does seem like you can see some of the frustration in that, when the Hur report comes out and they refer to him as an … elderly man with memory problems, and he comes out before the press and he seems sort of angry.
Yeah, I don't blame him for being angry.I'd be angry, too.We're sitting there comparing what happened to him and Trump as if they were the same situations....
He also has the thing where they questioned whether he knew when Beau died, and he goes out there, and he has Beau's rosary.
I mean, ask me, "When did your mother die?" I don't remember when my mother died.Could I work back and figure it out?I don't remember the year or the month.Could I work back?I probably can figure the year.I don't think I could figure the month, but it was an important day in my life.But if you ask me now, it would have nothing to do with my mental ability; it would have to do with fact that the day, the date is just not that important.
The State of the Union, when you watch that, who is that Joe Biden who you saw at the State of the Union speech?
I thought it was good.I thought it was Joe Biden.And the way you knew it was, was that he was comfortable doing it.He had a great comfort in giving the speech.And he actually had a little bit of fun giving the speech.He was kind of enjoying himself.
It's interesting.You said that he's not by nature combative, but he's very willing to do it when he—
Oh, no, no, yeah.You push him, he'll push back, yeah.But if you want to deal, he'll deal, yeah.
What is that about him?The guy who it's not his first inclination to fight back like you sort of saw in a moment like the State of the Union, but who is willing to—
… It worked for him the whole time he was in the Senate, so it's hard to change when you’ve got a plan that's been working for 50 years, you know?You don't really want to change.So you’re not dealing with the House Republicans and Donald Trump.Now you're dealing with them; you're not dealing with reasonable people anymore.I think he should be, frankly, myself, I think he should be more combative.
… How much do you think Joe Biden—how high are the stakes in this election from the perspective—
As I said earlier, save the world.The first time we just had to save the country, the first time he ran.Now we have to save the world.This guy's really dangerous.He basically said, "I'll solve the Ukraine problem the first day I get elected," you know?Yeah, he'll give Ukraine to—he'll tell Putin, "Take it."
Just explain that for me, from Biden's perspective, why he sees this election in terms of saving the world.
I don't know anybody that doesn't, or anybody that doesn't consider this existential, that Trump is going to wreck the house.He's promised.It's not like he's even being coy.He's promised that he's going to weaponize the Justice Department.The irony is they accuse Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department.It's anything but.
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