Joe Biden, a fixture in American politics for half a century as a senator and vice president, completed a lengthy rise to the political summit that included two failed presidential offers prior to defeating President Donald Trump.
When he enters the White House on January 20, Biden, at the age of 78, will be the oldest person to take office.
Action on ‘Day One’ “class =” youTubeVideoPlayer “data-youtube-category =” News & Politics “>
The Delaware Democrat played his political experience during a bitter and divisive campaign, presenting himself as a proven leader capable of healing a nation struck by the coronavirus pandemic and providing stability after the turbulence of the Trump presidency.
“With age comes a bit of wisdom,” he said before the polls closed on Tuesday.
Edison Research and major US television networks projected Biden’s victory over Republican Trump on Saturday. Trump has stepped up his baseless attacks on the voting process in recent days, falsely claiming that he was “stealing” the election.
Trump mocked Biden as “Sleepy Joe” during the campaign and said his mental capacity was “skyrocketing.” The president’s allies sought to portray Biden as senile. Trump, 74, was the oldest person to assume the presidency when he was sworn in at age 70 in 2017.
Biden unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008 before finally securing his party’s blessing this year with strong support among black voters.
By accepting the nomination in August, he emphasized compassion and decency, seeking to establish a contrast to the brash and belligerent Trump.
“I will be an ally of the light,” Biden said, “not the dark.”
He has brought into his political career a combination of blue collar credentials, foreign policy experience, and a compelling life story marked by family tragedy – the loss of his first wife and daughter in a car accident and a son to cancer.
Biden came to Washington as a young upstart. He was elected in 1972 at age 29 to the United States Senate by Delaware and served there for 36 years before serving from 2009 to 2017 as vice president to Barack Obama, the country’s first black president.
Biden chose not to run for president in 2016, only to see Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. When Biden announced his 2020 candidacy in April 2019, he targeted Trump.
“We are in the battle for the soul of this nation,” he said, adding that, if reelected, Trump “would forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation – who we are – and I cannot stand by and see that.” happen.”
Biden chose Senator Kamala Harris, whose father immigrated from Jamaica and whose mother immigrated from India, as his running mate, making her the first black woman and the first person of Asian descent on a list of major American parties. At 56, Harris is a generation younger than Biden.
Fireman
Trump tried to turn Biden’s experience into a drag, denouncing him as a career politician and saying that Biden would become a puppet of the “radical left” of the Democratic Party.
the coronavirus The pandemic was front and center of the presidential race. Biden accused Trump of surrendering to the public health crisis, saying the president panicked and tried to eliminate the virus instead of doing the hard work necessary to control it, leaving the economy in shambles and millions of people out of work.
Trump, who was hospitalized for three days after contracting COVID-19, mocked Biden for regularly wearing a face mask to protect against the spread of the pathogen.
An effort by Trump to unearth Biden resulted in the president’s impeachment in the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives in December 2019.The two articles of impeachment, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, stemmed from Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate Biden. and his son Hunter on unsubstantiated corruption charges.
In February, the Senate, controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, cleared him of the charges after refusing to call witnesses.
US intelligence agencies and the FBI director concluded this year that Russia, after interfering in the 2016 election to harm Trump’s opponent Clinton, was engaging in a campaign to denigrate Biden and increase the chances of re-election of Trump while promoting discord in America.
Biden’s two previous presidential races didn’t go well. He retired from the 1988 race after accusations that he had plagiarized some lines from the speech of British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. In 2008, Biden garnered little support and withdrew, only to be selected later as Obama’s running mate.
Under Obama, Biden served as a problem solver in war and foreign affairs and in domestic affairs such as gun control and fiscal policy.
Obama did not always follow Biden’s advice. Obama gave the green light to the 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, despite Biden’s warning that it was too risky.
Biden speaks openly about his family’s tragedies, including the 1972 car accident that killed his first wife, Neilia, and their 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, weeks after his election to the Senate.
She almost gave up her political career to care for her two young children who survived the accident but stayed behind, traveling by train from Delaware to Washington to avoid uprooting them.
In 2015, her son Joseph “Beau” Biden III, an Iraq War veteran who had served as Delaware attorney general, died of brain cancer at age 46. Hunter, Biden’s son, struggled with drug problems as an adult.
Biden himself had a health problem in 1988 when he suffered two brain aneurysms.
Blue collar background
Biden was born in the working-class town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and was the oldest of four siblings. Later, his family moved to Delaware. He overcame stuttering as a child by reciting passages of poetry in a mirror.
He was practically a political rookie, having served two years on a county board in Delaware, when in 1972 he became the fifth-youngest elected senator in United States history.
Despite years of partisan hostilities in Washington, Biden continued to believe in bipartisanship. During his time in the Senate, he was known for his close working relationships with some of his Republican colleagues. Several disgruntled Republicans, including former government officials and former legislators alarmed by the Trump presidency, backed Biden’s candidacy for the White House.
Biden advocated for America’s role as a leader on the world stage at a time when Trump was abandoning international agreements and alienating long-time foreign allies.
While in the Senate, he developed a specialty in foreign affairs and at one point headed the Foreign Relations Committee. He voted to authorize the 2003 invasion of Iraq before becoming critical of Republican President George W. Bush’s handling of the war.
.
