Joe Biden. A long-time senator, then vice-president of Barack Obama, Joe Biden arrived at the White House at the age of 78. A look back at a long political career.
Senator at 29, president at 78, Joe Biden’s career is a piece of United States history. Re-elected six times to the Senate, where he chaired several committees including that of Foreign Affairs, Joe Biden became vice-president of the United States in 2008, alongside Barack Obama, of whom he became a close but discreet adviser. Twelve years later, he won the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election, which he won against incumbent President Donald Trump, who would never really accept his defeat.
Born into a modest family in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden experienced several family tragedies: a road accident in 1972 killed his first wife and their 13-month-old daughter. In 2015, her eldest son died of brain cancer. Joe Biden’s political career has also been studded with controversy, from a plagiarized speech in 1988 to the discovery of confidential documents at his personal home in 2022. A look back at the personal and political journey of the oldest American president.
Youth and family of Joe Biden
Joe Biden was born in 1942 in the state of Pennsylvania, into a modest Catholic family of Irish origin. His grandfather was the descendant of French Huguenots. During his childhood, Joe Biden suffered from a stutter, which he learned to overcome as he grew up. He is a graduate in history, political science and law.
Political career of Joe Biden
Senator for 37 years
When he was only 29, Joe Biden became one of the youngest American senators, elected in Delaware. He was re-elected six times to this post. From 1987 to 1995, he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he distinguished himself by several laws against crime and drug traffickers. He then chaired the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Joe Biden supports a military intervention in Iraq within the framework of the UN. However, he voted for the resolution authorizing President Bush to launch a military operation there without the approval of the UN Security Council.
Democratic primaries and vice-presidency of the United States
Joe Biden ran for the 1988 Democratic primary for the presidential election. However, things get complicated when one of his opponents reveals that Biden plagiarized a speech by British Labor leader Neil Kinnock. Following a double ruptured aneurysm, the senator withdrew from the primary.
He candidate again in the primary of 2008, but poorly placed in the polls, he abandoned the race en route. It was then that the winner of the primary, Barack Obama, offered to run in pairs with him for the post of vice-president. Joe Biden was therefore elected vice-president of the United States and was sworn in on January 20, 2009. He became a close but discreet adviser to Barack Obama. The two running mates were re-elected in 2012. During his two terms, Joe Biden played an important role in Foreign Affairs, notably by increasing visits to Latin America. He chose not to run in the 2016 Democratic primary.
On April 25, 2019, Joe Biden announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party primary, with a view to the 2020 presidential election. In this primary, he represented the moderate, centrist and even conservative wing of the party. Facing him, his main competitor and Bernie Sanders, defender of a line more to the left. The start of Biden’s campaign is clouded by accusations of touching made by several women against him. The Covid-19 health crisis also drastically reduces the possibilities of conducting a field campaign. But it was ultimately Bernie Sanders who gave in first and announced that he would withdraw his candidacy in April 2020. Joe Biden was then easily invested by his party. He chooses Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Among Joe Biden’s main campaign promises, we can cite the return of the United States to the Paris climate agreement and to the World Health Organization (WHO), an increase in taxes on the wealthy and on companies, the strengthening of Obamacare, or even a major investment plan in American industry and the end of the “Muslim ban” decreed by Donald Trump.
During the presidential campaign, Joe Biden shows some signs of weakness: loss of balance, absences and incoherent remarks. His often lost appearance earned him the nickname “Sleepy Joe” by his opponent, Donald Trump. His advanced age and his state of health question some Americans.
The popular vote for the presidential election is held on November 3, 2020, but the final results for some states take several days to be released. While to the surprise of all the polls, Donald Trump is initially given the lead, the game turns in a few hours to the advantage of Joe Biden. On November 7, 2020, the partial results ensured Biden 270 electors, promising him victory. The Americans granted him more than 81 million votes, this is the first time that an American candidate has obtained so many votes.
Outgoing President Donald Trump refuses defeat and accuses the Democratic Party of fraud. Several legal proceedings were initiated by his team, none of which succeeded. On December 14, 2020, the electors, gathered in the electoral college, granted 306 votes to Joe Biden, against 232 for Donald Trump. Joe Biden is definitely elected. On January 6, during a rally of his supporters, the incumbent president called for “marching on the Capitol”, following which the headquarters of Congress was stormed and occupied for a few hours. On January 20, Joe Biden is sworn in and inaugurated as President of the United States, in the absence of Donald Trump.
Joe Biden’s start in office
The very evening of his official inauguration, Joe Biden signs several executive decrees, the most notable of which marks the return of the United States to the Paris climate agreement, from which Donald Trump had withdrawn. Quickly, he launches theAmerican Rescue Plan Act, an ambitious economic recovery plan to deal with the consequences of the health crisis. A major investment plan in American infrastructure follows. The first part of the mandate is also marked by the final withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. On the migratory level, on the other hand, Joe Biden, who had pledged to relax the tough policies of his predecessor, quickly faced an influx of illegal migrants and decided to stick to the quotas put in place by Donald Trump.
Joe Biden experiences the start of a diplomatic crisis with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in September 2021: while France had signed a huge contract with Australia for the delivery of 12 submarines, Australia broke the contract to prefer collaboration with the United States and the United Kingdom. Relations with France are temporarily strained, before returning to relative normality. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24, 2022, Joe Biden commits his country to increasingly heavy economic sanctions against Russia. The United States is also becoming Ukraine’s privileged partner for the supply of arms and military equipment.
On November 8, 2022, in the midterm congressional elections, Biden’s Democratic party lost a majority in the House of Representatives, but narrowly retained the Senate.
In December 2022, documents classified as confidential were found at Joe Biden’s personal home in Delaware. These pieces date back to when he was Barack Obama’s vice president. Confidential documents had already been discovered a month earlier at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington where the president had held an office. The case caused a stir and the Republicans seized on it. The House of Representatives, won over to the opposition, opens a parliamentary inquiry, while the Minister of Justice entrusts the investigations to an independent special prosecutor. For his part, Joe Biden brushes off the accusations by assuring that “it’s wind”: “Listen, we found some documents (…) which were stored in the wrong place, we immediately handed them over to the Archives and to the Ministry of Justice”, declared the president on January 19 to the press.
Joe Biden had a first wife, Neilia Hunter, whom he married in 1966, and with whom he had three children. In 1972, Neilia Hunter died in a car accident, along with their 13-month-old daughter. Joe Biden remarried in 1977 to Jill Tracy Jacobs, a teacher, with whom he has a daughter.
Joe Biden has seven grandchildren. Her eldest son, Beau, died of cancer in 2015, aged 46. His youngest son, Hunter, has been at the center of various controversies: suspicions of corruption in connection with Ukraine under his father’s vice-presidency have been raised by several people, including Donald Trump. Three days before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post revealed some of the contents of a Hunter laptop, including emails exchanged with Ukrainian officials, as well as photos and videos of a sexual nature.
Joe Biden was born on November 20, 1942. He was therefore 78 years old when he arrived at the White House, which made him the oldest president of the United States. However, he is only four years older than his predecessor, Donald Trump, who was born in 1946.
At the end of 2022, the American economic magazine Forbes estimated Joe Biden’s fortune at around 8 to 9 million dollars. A big chunk of that fortune is his two homes, both worth millions of dollars. In May 2021, in his financial disclosure report, the American president declared between 1.2 and 2.9 million dollars in his cash and retirement accounts.