| Joe Biden | |
| |
| 46th President of the United States | |
| In Office: January 20, 2021 - January 20, 2025 | |
| Vice President: | Kamala Harris |
| Preceded by: | Donald Trump |
| Succeeded by: | Kamala Harris |
| 47th Vice President of the United States | |
| In office: January 20, 2009 - January 20, 2017 | |
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by: | Dick Cheney |
| Succeeded by: | Mike Pence |
| United States Senator from Delaware | |
| In office: January 3, 1973 - January 15, 2009 | |
| Preceded by: | J. Caleb Boggs |
| Succeeded by: | Ted Kaufman |
| Biography | |
| Born: | Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Nov 20, 1942 Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
|
Citizenship: |
American |
| Political party: | Democratic (since 1969) |
| Spouse(s): | Neilia Hunter (m. 1966; died 1972) Jill Jacobs (m. 1977) |
| Children: | Beau Hunter Naomi Ashley |
| Alma mater: |
University of Delaware (BA) |
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (/ˈbaɪdən/ BY-dən; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under President Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.
Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden moved with his family to Delaware in 1953. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years. He chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995; drafted and led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Biden ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Barack Obama chose Biden as his running mate in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. Biden was a close counselor to Obama during his two terms as Obama's vice president. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, defeated incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence.
On January 20, 2021, Biden became the oldest president in U.S. history, the first to have a female vice president, the second Catholic president, and the first from Delaware. In his term as president, he addressed the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent recession. He signed the American Rescue Plan Act, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified protections for same-sex marriage and repealed the Defense of Marriage Act. He appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Biden restored America's membership in the Paris Agreement on climate change. He completed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that had been negotiated and begun under the previous administration, ending the war in Afghanistan, during which the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control. He signed AUKUS, a security pact, together with Australia and the United Kingdom. He responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and authorizing foreign aid and weapons shipments to Ukraine.
In April 2023, Biden announced his reelection campaign. Following the 2024 Democratic primaries, he became the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election. However, Biden withdrew his candidacy in July 2024 after a series of age and health concerns, and endorsed Kamala Harris to replace him as the nominee. He was succeeded as president by Harris in 2025 after her successful victory over Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
Early life (1942–1965)[]
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942, at St. Mary's Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Biden (née Finnegan) and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. The oldest child in a Catholic family, he has a sister, Valerie, and two brothers, Francis and James. Jean was of Irish descent, while Joseph Sr. had English, Irish, and French Huguenot ancestry. Biden's paternal line has been traced to stonemason William Biden, who was born in 1789 in Westbourne, England, and emigrated to Maryland in the United States by 1820.
Biden's father had been wealthy and the family purchased a home in the affluent Long Island suburb of Garden City in the fall of 1946, but he suffered business setbacks around the time Biden was seven years old, and for several years the family lived with Biden's maternal grandparents in Scranton. Scranton fell into economic decline during the 1950s and Biden's father could not find steady work. Beginning in 1953 when Biden was ten, the family lived in an apartment in Claymont, Delaware, before moving to a house in nearby Mayfield. Biden Sr. later became a successful used-car salesman, maintaining the family in a middle-class lifestyle.
At Archmere Academy in Claymont, Biden played baseball and was a standout halfback and wide receiver on the high school football team. Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years. He graduated in 1961. At the University of Delaware in Newark, Biden briefly played freshman football, and, as an unexceptional student, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965 with a double major in history and political science.
Biden has a stutter, which has improved since his early twenties. Biden has described his efforts to reduce it by reciting poetry before a mirror.
Marriages, law school, and early career (1966–1973)[]
On August 27, 1966, Biden married Neilia Hunter (1942–1972), a student at Syracuse University, after overcoming her parents' reluctance for her to wed a Roman Catholic. Their wedding was held in a Catholic church in Skaneateles, New York. They had three children: Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III (1969–2015), Robert Hunter Biden (born 1970), and Naomi Christina "Amy" Biden (1971–1972).
In 1968, Biden earned a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law, ranked 76th in his class of 85, after failing a course due to an acknowledged "mistake" when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969.
Biden had not openly supported or opposed the Vietnam War until he ran for Senate and opposed Nixon's conduct of the war. While studying at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University, Biden obtained five student draft deferments, at a time when most draftees were sent to the Vietnam War. In 1968, based on a physical examination, he was given a conditional medical deferment; in 2008, a spokesperson for Biden said his having had "asthma as a teenager" was the reason for the deferment.
In 1968, Biden clerked at a Wilmington law firm headed by prominent local Republican William Prickett and, he later said, "thought of myself as a Republican". He disliked incumbent Democratic Delaware governor Charles L. Terry's conservative racial politics and supported a more liberal Republican, Russell W. Peterson, who defeated Terry in 1968. Biden was recruited by local Republicans but registered as an Independent because of his distaste for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon.
In 1969, Biden practiced law, first as a public defender and then at a firm headed by a locally active Democrat who named him to the Democratic Forum, a group trying to reform and revitalize the state party; Biden subsequently reregistered as a Democrat. He and another attorney also formed a law firm. Corporate law did not appeal to him, and criminal law did not pay well. He supplemented his income by managing properties.
In 1970, Biden ran for the 4th district seat on the New Castle County Council on a liberal platform that included support for public housing in the suburbs. The seat had been held by Republican Henry R. Folsom, who was running in the 5th District following a reapportionment of council districts. Biden won the general election by defeating Republican Lawrence T. Messick, and took office on January 5, 1971. He served until January 1, 1973, and was succeeded by Democrat Francis R. Swift. During his time on the county council, Biden opposed large highway projects, which he argued might disrupt Wilmington neighborhoods.