Joe Biden Read online

  Joe Biden had good relations with many members of Congress. He felt hopeful that Congress could work out a health care reform bill fairly quickly. At first it seemed that the House of Representatives and the Senate would cooperate to craft a bill that Democrats and Republicans alike could agree on.

  In August 2009 the fight for health care reform lost a great champion. Joe Biden’s mentor and longtime friend Ted Kennedy died of brain cancer. Speaking at the memorial service at the Kennedy Library in Boston, Biden told how Kennedy had helped him through his first hard year in the Senate after Neilia’s death, and how Kennedy had visited him in Wilmington in 1988 when Biden was recovering from brain surgery. Throughout Kennedy’s Senate career, he had fought for universal health care in the United States.

  By 2010, Republican resistance to Barack Obama’s presidency had grown. But through compromises and pushing and pulling, Congress managed to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”). Joe Biden could feel rightly proud of his part in the effort. This was the first major health care reform since the beginning of Medicare in 1966.

  On March 23, 2010, Joe Biden went with Barack Obama to the East Room of the White House, where President Obama would finally sign the ACA into law. Biden was so excited that he forgot he was standing next to a live microphone. “Mr. President,” he said to Obama, “this is a big [expletive] deal.”

  One more of Joe Biden’s gaffes. But in this case, perhaps, a forgivable one.

  * * *

  Appointing new justices to the Supreme Court was also an important concern of the Obama administration. In May 2009, President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring justice David Souter. Vice President Biden, with his long experience on the Senate Judiciary Committee, was glad to help her get ready for the hearings. Sotomayor sailed through the process and was easily confirmed by the Senate. She was the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.

  A year later, in May 2010, Obama nominated Elena Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. She, too, was confirmed by the Senate.

  Also in May, Joe Biden took a trip that had a bittersweet personal meaning. After giving a commencement speech at Syracuse University, he visited Bellevue Elementary School. There he told the kids about Neilia, “the most beautiful teacher,” and how he used to play basketball with her students on the playground as he waited for her.

  Along with the Obama administration’s victories, they suffered some serious defeats. In the congressional elections of November 2010, Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives by a landslide. “A shellacking,” President Obama called it. Now the Democrats would have a harder time passing legislation.

  * * *

  Just as Jill had predicted, living in the vice president’s residence in Washington had great advantages. Joe and Jill Biden were delighted to have Hunter and Kathleen and their three children not far away. Hunter had given up his lobbying business, to avoid political embarrassment for his father, and now he had a consulting firm.

  Hunter’s youngest daughter, Maisy, and Sasha Obama were in the same class at Sidwell Friends School. The two were best friends. Kathleen Biden and Michelle Obama also became close, and the two women and their girls even took vacations together.

  As for Beau, he and Hallie stayed in Wilmington. Having returned from his tour in Iraq with his National Guard unit, Beau was now back to working as attorney general of Delaware. And he seemed perfectly fit and healthy, as he always had been.

  So it was a shock to the Biden family when suddenly, one day in 2010, Beau woke up paralyzed on his right side. Joe rushed to the hospital, but by then Beau’s symptoms had just as quickly disappeared. The doctors decided it wasn’t anything serious.

  Still, Joe was deeply shaken. And Barack Obama was also worried, because during the previous two years of working together, he and Joe had become friends. When Biden returned to the White House, Obama’s senior advisor David Axelrod was startled to see the president running down the hall. Barack was running to greet his friend Joe, to give him a big hug.

  * * *

  In 2012, President Obama and Vice President Biden were up for reelection. Their Republican opponents were Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, and Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. That May, Biden made a campaign appearance on Meet the Press. An issue in the news at the time was same-sex marriage, and Obama was still officially against legalizing it.

  But Joe Biden, when asked about same-sex marriage by the interviewer, blurted out that he was “absolutely comfortable” with it. Although Biden’s previous position was that marriage could be only between a man and a woman, he now believed that marriage was all about the question, “Who do you love?” He believed that gay and lesbian couples were entitled to the same civil rights as straight couples.

  President Obama had cautiously, privately come around to this position. But the Obama administration (including Biden) had intended to wait until November, after Obama had been reelected, to publicly announce the change. So Obama was taken aback that Biden had jumped the gun on national television. However, the president set the confusion to rest by announcing his new position on ABC’s Good Morning America: “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

  And on Tuesday, November 6, President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden were reelected.

  “My Beautiful Boy”

  Now President Obama and Vice President Biden had another four years to accomplish their goals for the country. But there was a shadow waiting to fall over Joe’s personal life.

  In 2012, as Joe won reelection as vice president, Beau Biden easily won reelection as attorney general of Delaware. Joe had great hopes for his older son. He hoped that Beau would follow him into the Senate seat he’d left. And he hoped even more that Beau would run for the presidency one day. Maybe Joe himself could never be president, but he felt sure that Beau could.

  Ever since Beau’s paralysis scare in 2010, he’d felt fine. Then, in 2013, he began to have symptoms that did not go away. He had dizzy spells; he had hallucinations. That summer, a brain scan showed a large tumor on the left side of his brain. Surgery to remove most of it revealed that it was an aggressive, malignant brain cancer.

  Beau’s cancer was probably incurable. But he believed in the Biden motto, “If you get knocked down, get up.” He was determined to fight his cancer, and he began the attack with radiation and chemotherapy.

  “Don’t let anybody tell me what the percentages are,” Beau told his father and brother. “I’m going to beat this.” Throughout his treatment, he continued working as attorney general.

  At one point in 2014, Beau was so weakened by his harsh treatment that he thought he might have to resign from his job. Joe worried that Beau and his family would lose their only income, and he and Jill considered taking out a second mortgage on their house. When Barack Obama heard about this, he ordered Joe, “Don’t do that.” Barack had enough money, and he would lend it to Joe if the Biden family needed it.

  But Beau rallied, and in November 2014, he announced his plan to run for governor of Delaware in 2016. For Thanksgiving 2014, the whole Biden family gathered as usual on Nantucket Island. This joyful tradition had started in 1975 with just Joe, Jill, Beau, and Hunter.

  As the Bidens had celebrated the holiday together year after year, the family had grown to include Ashley, then the boys’ wives, the five grandchildren, and finally Ashley’s husband, Howard Krein. For many years, they drove to the Nantucket ferry in a car caravan. But these days, they all flew to the island on Air Force Two, the plane that transports the vice president of the US.

  The 2014 Thanksgiving gathering was different.Beau refused to talk about his illness, and he never complained. “All good,” he was in the habit of saying. “All good.” Beau didn’t want anyone to give in to unhappy feelings around him. “Dad!” he reminded Joe, who was gazing at him sadly. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  But Joe and the rest of the Bidens couldn’t help
worrying. Beau was thin and walking awkwardly, and he got tired quickly. The radiation and chemotherapy had weakened his right arm and leg, and now he had trouble remembering the names of things. Instead of saying, “Pass the dinner rolls,” he’d say, “Pass the, you know, the brown thing you put the butter on.”

  Joe had originally planned to run for president in 2016. If so, he needed to ramp up his campaign in 2015—the earlier, the better. But now he thought he should wait and see how Beau’s treatment went.

  However, in a private talk during the Thanksgiving vacation, Beau and Hunter disagreed with Joe. They believed that their father was by far the best candidate. “You’ve got to run. I want you to run,” Beau said.

  * * *

  Beau continued to work as Delaware’s attorney general through the end of his term, January 2015. In February, the doctors discovered that in spite of chemotherapy and radiation, the tumor in his brain was growing and spreading. Beau decided to keep on fighting with more surgery and an experimental treatment.

  The Biden family would do anything for Beau, and they all worked together to support him. Hallie, his wife, made sure that their children, Natalie and Hunter, were well and safe. Jill, his mom, looked out for the smallest details of Beau’s comfort.

  Hunter, his brother and closest friend, was the person Beau could confide in as he confronted the painful questions of life and death. Ashley, Beau’s adoring sister, met him at the hospital in Philadelphia and stayed with him through his therapy sessions. Ashley’s husband, Howard, was a head and neck surgeon himself. He was in constant touch with Beau’s doctors, and he kept his professional eye on Beau. He was also able to interpret the doctors’ medical jargon for the family.

  Joe Biden wanted nothing more than to be with his son as Beau fought for his life. But he was the vice president of the United States, with heavy responsibilities. President Obama was counting on him. And most important, Joe knew that Beau himself would be deeply disappointed in his father if he slacked off on his duty to his country.

  So Joe continued to work, including overseas travel, sometimes with a grandchild or two. One of the privileges of being vice president was that Biden could take his grandchildren all over the world. Hunter’s daughter Finnegan, now sixteen, was especially eager for international adventures, and she was “Pop’s” companion for a trip to Europe early in February 2015.

  Biden’s main reason for this trip was a conference in Munich, Germany. The US and its western European allies were worried about Russia’s continuing attacks on Ukraine, in spite of the cease-fire agreement signed in September 2014. In his speech to the conference, Biden told the assembled dignitaries that the US would support Ukraine with military aid if necessary. Senator John McCain, who was head of the US congressional delegation at the conference, told Biden afterward that it was the best speech he’d heard Joe give.

  At the beginning of March, it was discovered that Beau’s experimental treatment for cancer had failed. Beau took this in calmly, then decided to try more surgery and a combination of two other treatments. One was so new that it had never before been used on humans.

  Joe kept on working, so hard that he developed pneumonia himself. But he continued to work. He flew with Jill to Guatemala for a conference with the leaders of that country, El Salvador, and Honduras. Because of the poverty and violence in those countries, a surge of refugees, especially children, were arriving in the US. Biden and the Central American leaders agreed on a plan that provided hope for stabilizing their countries.

  Upon Biden’s return to the US, the new Iraqi prime minister called on him for help in resisting an invasion. Biden had made many trips to Iraq over the years, first as senator and then as vice president, since President Bush had launched the Iraq War in 2003. And because Beau had risked his life serving in Iraq with the National Guard, Biden felt a personal concern for that country.

  Toward the end of March, Biden flew to Houston, where Beau would undergo his next surgery. Joe could see that the doctors and nurses had a special concern for his son. And Beau was truly and lovingly supported by his family, especially Jill; and his wife, Hallie; and Hunter. Ashley was there with her big brother too.

  Joe stayed in Houston for two days after the surgery. Visiting the hospital once more before he left, he found Beau up and walking. “It’s all good, Dad,” said Beau. But Joe hated to leave him. During the flight back to Washington, he wrote in his diary: I feel so goddam lonely.

  The new experimental treatment seemed to help Beau, and in April he was able to go home to Wilmington. One day he and Hallie brought their children to Joe and Jill’s for a special event. Jill had written a children’s book, Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops, especially for the children of parents serving in the military overseas. A reading of the book was being recorded for Reading Rainbow. Ten-year-old Natalie, eight-year-old Hunter, Jill, and Joe took turns reading aloud for the visiting TV crew.

  At times during the reading Joe struggled not to break down, but he felt he had to keep strong for the rest of his family, as well as for Beau and for the country. Back in Washington, Natalie’s class went to the capital to tour the White House. Joe and Jill hosted her class for pizza at the vice president’s residence.

  In May, there seemed to be hope that the latest cancer treatment could work. Beau moved to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington, where Joe could visit him twice a day. One evening, Joe arrived at the hospital eager to tell Beau about a visitor to the White House: the singer-songwriter Elton John.

  Joe reminded Beau that the two of them and Hunter used to sing along with Elton John on the car radio. There in the hospital room, he sang to Beau: “ ‘But the biggest kick I ever got / Was doing a thing called the Crocodile Rock.’ ” Beau’s eyes were closed, but he smiled.

  During the next few weeks, Joe Biden clung to the hope that Beau could survive his illness and the harsh treatments. Sometimes Beau seemed a little better, sometimes worse. Vice President Biden continued to work.

  The crisis in Ukraine was mounting. The country had been plagued by corruption for years, and Joe Biden had tried to encourage the government to control it. Now Russian troops were still on the eastern border with heavy artillery. Three months earlier, Russian president Vladimir Putin had signed an agreement to withdraw his troops, but he still hadn’t done it. Worse, he seemed to be preparing for a fresh push into Ukraine.

  * * *

  On Friday, May 30, Joe and the rest of the Bidens gathered at the hospital for a conference with the doctors. The doctors presented the medical details but didn’t say what they added up to. Finally Howard, the only doctor in the Biden family, said, “You have to tell them the truth.” The truth was, there was no more hope.

  At a little before eight o’clock that evening, Beau’s heart stopped beating. Later that night, Joe wrote in his diary: It happened. My God, my boy. My beautiful boy.

  Beau’s memorial service was held on Saturday, June 6, 2015, at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Wilmington. It was a public event, recorded by TV cameras, since Beau as well as his father had been a public figure. Hunter and Ashley both spoke touchingly about their brother, and President Obama gave the main eulogy. Barack Obama did not often let his emotions show, but this day he spoke from the heart. He praised Beau. He told Joe with tears in his eyes how much Joe’s friendship meant to him.

  Obama ended by saying that he and Michelle and their girls considered themselves honorary members of the Biden family. “We’re always here for you,” he promised. “We always will be. My word as a Biden.” As Barack left the podium, he and Joe embraced each other.

  * * *

  Joe Biden was still considering a run for president in 2016. In January 2017 he would be seventy-four, older than any other president-elect in the history of the US, so maybe this was his last chance. Beau had believed in him so deeply; Beau had declared that it was his father’s duty to run. “You’ve got to run. I want you to run.”

  However, President Ob
ama advised Biden against running. Obama thought that Joe and his family had been through too much, with Beau’s illness and death, to take on the huge stress of a presidential campaign. He also thought that Hillary Clinton had a better chance of beating the Republican candidate, whoever that turned out to be.

  In spite of Obama’s advice, in September 2015, Biden’s team convinced him that he did have a decent chance. Joe began appearing and giving speeches, and he felt good about it. He was fired up, jogging through applauding crowds and speaking expressively on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

  Then the political attacks began, and Biden realized how nasty the campaign was going to get. There were rumors that Joe was using sympathy for Beau’s death to boost his run for president. Late in October, he painfully decided to end his campaign. He made the announcement the next day in the White House Rose Garden, with Jill on one side and Barack Obama on the other.

  * * *

  Vice President Joe Biden kept on working. He knew it was his duty, and he knew it was what Beau would have wanted him to do. In December 2015 he flew to Ukraine to speak to the Ukrainian parliament. This country was a struggling democracy, threatened by Russia and by its own corruption in the government.

  Meanwhile, seventeen Republicans competed to be nominated as the party’s presidential candidate. At first, one of the least likely candidates seemed to be Donald J. Trump. Trump was a TV reality show star and real-estate magnate, and he had no previous experience in the military or in politics. Nevertheless, he won the primary elections in state after state. By the end of May, Trump was guaranteed the Republican nomination.