The New York Times Joe Biden has delivered powerful eulogies since the 1970s. He’s eulogized academics (Nasrollah Fatemi in 1990). He’s eulogized senators (William Roth of Delaware in 2003). And childhood friends (Pete McLaughlin in 1989). No matter whom he honors, Biden’s words are personal (Representative Tom Lantos in 2008). His entire political career has been marked by personal loss. His allies say that makes him uniquely capable of leading a nation grappling with death. By Katie Glueck and Matt Flegenheimer June 11, 2020 An overstuffed binder sat in Joe Biden’s Senate office, holding the raw materials of his grief. It was a master collection, aides recalled, with remarks, notes and drafts of eulogies Mr. Biden had given through 2008 — for childhood friends, prominent senators, his own father. The table of contents was long enough to use every letter of the alphabet. It included a section of favored passages, often deployed in … [Read more...]

2 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden named California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate Tuesday, adding an experienced campaigner with national star power to his ticket. A barrier-breaking former California attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, Harris gives the Democratic presidential nominee-to-be a vice presidential candidate with long experience in executive and legislative roles, as well as a prosecutorial sharpness that she brought with her to the Senate. Chronicle political reporters Tal Kopan and Joe Garofoli join host Demian Bulwa on the Fifth & Mission podcast to break down why Joe Biden wants Harris as his running mate and how her past will factor into the campaign ahead. Demian Bulwa: Tal Kopan, tell us the latest. How did this go down with Joe Biden picking Kamala Harris? Tal Kopan: Well, you know, I think anyone at home probably saw some of it unfolding in plain view over the past several weeks and … [Read more...]

WILMINGTON, Del. — Over his near half-century in public life, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has made many speeches : good speeches, bad speeches, campaign kickoff speeches and concession speeches, speeches without proper attribution to original sources, speeches so impossibly Biden that no one could ever accuse him of lifting anything. “No one ever doubts that I mean what I say,” Mr. Biden, 77, is fond of telling audiences. “The problem is, I sometimes say all that I mean.” What he means to say on Thursday, as he accepts the Democratic presidential nomination in the most important — and likely most surreal — address of his career, has been something of a work in progress for several decades, since he charged onto the national stage as a 29-year-old senator-elect and sparked his first presidential speculation soon after. And so, friends said, some elements of his preparation process were to be expected. There would be consultations with a coterie of family members and his longest-serving … [Read more...]

Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday lashed out at his Democratic rivals who had condemned his fond recollections of working relationships with segregationists in the Senate, declining to apologize and defending his record on civil rights . The angry exchange shattered, at least for now, the relative comity that had marked the Democratic presidential primary. Until Wednesday, many of the Democratic candidates had largely taken oblique swipes at Mr. Biden , while the former vice president sought to stay above the fray, training his sights on President Trump instead. But a day after he invoked the 1970s, an era when he said he could find common ground with other senators — even virulent segregationists — his opponents offered their sharpest criticism yet. Senator Kamala Harris of California said the former vice president “doesn’t understand the history of our country and the dark history of our country,” and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey said Mr. Biden should immediately … [Read more...]

NASHUA, N.H. — He name-checked Senate leaders from the 1970s, trumpeted policy accomplishments from the 1980s and offered detailed analysis of a legislative battle from the 1990s. He gave sometimes meandering answers to voters and reporters, occasionally cutting himself off mid-digression. He clasped hands and gripped arms and issued hearty refrains of one of his signature phrases, “God love ya.” On his first trip to New Hampshire as a 2020 contender, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. made clear that he is relying on a set of retail politicking skills and reference points cultivated in a different era to forge the personal connections that voters here famously demand of presidential candidates. It is a warm, unhurried, feel-your-pain style that frequently delighted — and in some cases emotionally stirred — voters who encountered Mr. Biden on his swing on Monday and Tuesday through this state, which holds the first primary in the presidential nominating contest. … [Read more...]

Joseph R. Biden Jr ., who has been campaigning from his home for more than two months during the coronavirus crisis, on Monday made his first public appearance since mid-March, visiting a veterans memorial in Delaware. He and his wife, Jill Biden, wearing black masks , laid a wreath of white flowers in a Memorial Day commemoration that had not been publicly announced before the trip. Mr. Biden, a practicing Catholic, made the sign of the cross. “Thanks for your service,” Mr. Biden said, saluting a small group of veterans and other onlookers from a distance as he walked out. Mr. Biden , the presumptive Democratic nominee and former vice president, cut a sharp visual contrast with President Trump , who has generally declined to wear a mask in public despite federal health recommendations, a posture he maintained again on Monday. Mr. Trump participated in two Memorial Day events, first attending a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington … [Read more...]

President Biden Joe Biden Obama: Ensuring democracy 'continues to work effectively' keeps me 'up at night' New Jersey landlords prohibited from asking potential tenants about criminal records Overnight Defense: Pentagon pulling some air defense assets from Middle East | Dems introduce resolution apologizing to LGBT community for discrimination | White House denies pausing military aid package to Ukraine MORE repeatedly framed his campaign and his administration as defending “the rule of law” after what he and others portrayed as the lawless reign of President Trump Donald Trump White House denies pausing military aid package to Ukraine Poll: 30 percent of GOP voters believe Trump will 'likely' be reinstated this year Black Secret Service agent told Trump it was offensive to hold rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth: report MORE . The image of Biden as restoring the Justice Department back into the good graces of the law and the courts is reinforced … [Read more...]

A Maryland man has been accused of shooting at two passers-by with a shotgun over the weekend while he was putting up Joe Biden campaign signs in his yard, according to Baltimore County Police reports. Douglas Kuhn was tending to a number of Joe Biden yard signs on his property when a truck displaying a large Trump-Pence campaign sign drove by and the driver honked on the horn, according to Baltimore County Police. Kuhn allegedly picked up a shotgun laying nearby and ran to the edge of his property as the truck continued driving away and fired the shotgun at the truck, according to Baltimore County Police and the victims. Kuhn was arrested on Sunday and charged with multiple crimes including two felony counts of first-degree assault, per Maryland court records. He is being held without bond. (RELATED: 4 Shot Across New York City In A Little Over An Hour) A Kingsville man putting up a Joe Biden sign in his yard shot at two men who honked at him inside a truck … [Read more...]

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was elected the 46th president of the United States on Saturday, promising to restore political normalcy and a spirit of national unity to confront raging health and economic crises, and making Donald J. Trump a one-term president after four years of tumult in the White House. Mr. Biden ’s victory amounted to a repudiation of Mr. Trump by millions of voters exhausted with his divisive conduct and chaotic administration, and was delivered by an unlikely alliance of women, people of color, old and young voters and a sliver of disaffected Republicans. Mr. Trump is only the third elected president since World War II to lose re-election, and the first in more than a quarter-century. The result also provided a history-making moment for Mr. Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California, who will become the first woman to serve as vice president. With his triumph, Mr. Biden, who turns 78 later this month, fulfilled his decades-long ambition … [Read more...]

[Follow our daily updates on the latest presidential election polls .] As Joseph R. Biden Jr. prepares to formally accept his party’s nomination for the presidency Thursday, the gap is widening between the optimism of a standard-bearer shaped by his career in a more collegial Congress and the skepticism of current Democratic lawmakers who see a Capitol that would be unrecognizable to the Senator Biden who served there a dozen years ago. Lawmakers who reach across the aisle these days are more likely to find their hands slapped. And they have a warning for their nominee as he basks at a Democratic convention brimming with nostalgia for an earlier, less polarized political era: A Biden victory, even if accompanied by Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, is more likely to be followed by partisan warfare than bipartisan bonhomie. Democrats are eager to see if Republicans will prove more willing to negotiate should they lose the White House and Senate, and many in … [Read more...]