Joe Biden, who assumed the presidency of the United States on January 20, 2021, while the elections themselves took place on November 3, 2020, is quite well known to Americans.
Private life
According to Wikipedia, Joe Biden was born on November 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Lived most of his life in Delaware. In 1968, he received his law degree from the State of New York. From 1969 to 1972, he practiced law with the Public Defenders Office in Wilmington, Delaware, after which he decided to establish his own law firm.
Biden’s fortune, according to Forbes, is estimated at nine million dollars.
How old is Biden
As mentioned above, Biden, the real US president, was born on November 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA. Given the fact that Joe Biden is 78 years old, he can be called the oldest president in the history of the United States (for example, Trump is currently 74 years old). Let us dwell in more detail on the main periods of the career of the elected President of the United States.
Family and children
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., as his full name sounds, had four children in total: sons Bo and Hunter, daughters Naomi and Ashley. First wife Nelia Hunter and Biden’s daughter Naomi died in a plane crash in 1972, and in 2015, eldest son Bo, who was 46 years old, died of brain cancer. In connection with the tragedy, he decided to withdraw from the presidential elections in 2016.
Jill Biden
Joe Biden’s second wife is Jill Biden. She is a teacher in the USA, now she is the First Lady of the USA since January 20, 2021, also Jill was the Second Lady of the USA from 2009 to 2017.
Ashley Biden
Ashley is the name of the daughter of Joe and Jill Biden, born June 8, 1981. Her wife’s name is Howard Crane. Now known as an American social worker, activist, philanthropist and founder of the fashion company Livelihood.
Biden’s Health
In 1998, Biden underwent two operations related to a cerebral aneurysm. According to the doctor of the former vice president, this does not affect the politician’s health in any way. Although his age at the moment is 78 years.
Biden Policy
Between 1973 and 2009, Joe Biden was a senator from Delaware, and repeatedly became head of the foreign affairs committee. As a senator, he quite often spoke in favor of cooperation with the Russian Federation in the field of arms control.
Biden spoke with active support for US intervention in the situation in the Balkans, while emphasizing that he considered Slobodan Milosevic, whom he met, a “war criminal.” In addition, the senator actively supported the operation undertaken against Yugoslavia.
Biden advocated eastward expansion of NATO, in connection with which he insisted on the inclusion of countries such as Ukraine and Georgia in the alliance. The senator’s support was also caused by the start of hostilities by US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, which took place in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Barack Obama noted that he chose Biden as his partner in the presidential race primarily because of the senator’s knowledge of Congress from the inside, and also due to his unique experience in the field of foreign policy.
Biden Democrat or Republican
In the administration of former head of state Barack Obama, he served as vice president for eight years, while previously representing Delaware in the Senate for 35 years.
Thus, Biden can be attributed to one of the most experienced and authoritative representatives of the Democratic Party, who for many years took a direct part in shaping the US political course, including relations with Russia, not to mention Ukraine.
Biden on Russia
With the coming to power of Barack Obama, Biden took over as vice president, and he was one of the first to advocate fundamental changes in relations with the Russian Federation.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, given some time after the official assumption of the position of vice president, Biden stressed that the Russian economy is in a declining state, and therefore its role in the world will gradually decrease. The Vice President unequivocally stated that the Russian Federation is in dire need of support from the West, and she herself is well aware of this fact.
Some time later, Biden admitted that plans to “reset” relations with the Russian Federation were only partially implemented. Biden took an active part in the work related to the ratification of the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms. It is worth noting that in the framework of the election race, he emphasized this fact, including the ratification of the Treaty among his achievements and actively advocated its extension.
In addition, during the election campaign, the democrat repeatedly stated that he personally does not see the need for any significant cooperation with the Russian Federation, with the exception of cooperation in relation to the field of arms control.
Biden Russophobe? A week before the election, Biden emphasized that he considers Russia to be the state that poses the greatest danger, while noting that the Russian Federation undermines US security and also has a negative impact on allies. Biden stated that he had quite a lot of experience in interacting with the leadership of Russia, and therefore he was ready to go for tougher sanctions, and Russian interference in the elections could serve as a pretext.
According to the Democratic leader, Russia is interested in his defeat in the presidential race and is most directly related to the leak, the leak of the correspondence of Biden’s son Hunter to the media, while representatives of the Donald Trump administration have repeatedly stressed that they did not find any confirmation of this fact.
Quite often, Biden spoke out about the situation in Belarus, calling for sanctions against Alexander Lukashenko.
Curator of Ukraine
While serving in the Obama administration, Biden was the curator of US policy towards Ukraine. So, at the end of 2015, he said that with Poroshenko, who at that time was the Ukrainian leader, he talked on the phone for more than a thousand hours.
If the authenticity of the audio recordings published by the Verkhovna Rada deputy Andriy Derkach is to be believed, then during telephone conversations, Biden often spoke with Poroshenko as if he were a subordinate, toughly demanding decisions to be made directly related to both domestic and foreign policy of Ukraine.
Hunter Biden
Recall that during the election campaign, the leader of the Democrats became a defendant in a rather high-profile scandal. It was noted that, being the curator of relations with Ukraine, Biden demanded the dismissal of Viktor Shokin, who had begun an investigation into the case against Burisma Holdings, whose board of directors was appointed his son Hunter back in 2014.
As a result, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine was removed from his post, and the investigation was suspended. According to Republicans, Hunter’s monthly salary at the Ukrainian Energy Corporation was $50,000, and he had absolutely no experience in the oil and gas industry.
It was this circumstance that served as a reason to accuse Joe Biden of being involved, and in the most direct way, in corruption schemes in Ukraine, but the former vice president denies this fact.
In October 2020, Joe Biden had to personally comment on the published correspondence of his son Hunter, and the leader of the Democrats called the lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, who represents the interests of Donald Trump and said that he handed over the letters to the New York Post, “a puppet of Russia.”
Biden – President
Biden’s election campaign proceeded under the slogans “Anything is possible” and “Restore the soul of America.” In his campaign speeches, he advocated an increase in the minimum wage and increased access to higher education, as well as health care.
Rating
The rating of the new US president has fallen by 2 percentage points (p.p.) compared with the first days of his tenure – from 63% to 61% in just two weeks, the Hill newspaper writes.
Presidential Candidate
This is not the first time Joe Biden has made an attempt to become a Democratic presidential candidate, but only now everything ended successfully. So, in 1987, his campaign ended in complete failure, which lasted no more than three months, and the reason for the termination was the accusation of plagiarism.
In 2007, Biden was forced to withdraw his candidacy after failing to secure the necessary support from voters. A few months later, he became Barack Obama’s running mate.
Biden Agenda
In May, when mass protests began in the United States, Biden began to pay much more attention to the interests of black people and actively pushed for police reform.
With regard to the coronavirus pandemic, the Democratic leader stated that it is necessary to introduce the mandatory wearing of medical masks, while the COVID-19 vaccine should be free, and for all categories of the population.
Biden vs. Trump
Most interestingly, Biden has been vocal in his criticism of Trump’s reduction of the American military contingent in Syria, while advocating the complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. In addition, he opposed the annexation of the territories of Palestine, and also stated the need to resume Washington’s participation in the nuclear deal with Tehran.
Trump-Biden debate
If we dwell on the debates with fellow party members, as well as with Trump, then we can definitely say that the speeches were frankly weak. Despite the fact that the moderators did their best to avoid asking tough questions, Biden often simply could not articulate his thoughts clearly, or even interrupted the answer halfway through the phrase.
According to political scientists, support from African Americans, due to his eight years in the Obama administration, played a special role in Biden’s victory in the election race. The most interesting thing is that the ex-president himself did not immediately support his former vice president, but only in April.
According to Donald Trump, his rival, given his advanced age, does not remember well what he did yesterday, and therefore simply will not be able to cope with the duties of the president. According to the Republican leader, Biden will be completely controlled by his entourage, and primarily by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Compromising evidence and scandals
The nomination for the presidency this time was clearly not easy for Biden, although the mainstream American media initially called the former vice president the favorite of the race.
The most interesting thing is that long before Biden announced his decision to run for the presidency of the United States, accusations of inappropriate behavior began to come against him, mostly associated with hugs, as well as kisses. Biden could not avoid accusations of a number of harassment. So, for his love of hugging young girls, as well as kissing and trying to sniff their hair, the politician received a nickname that sounds like “weird Uncle Joe.”
The leader of the Democrats explained his behavior towards women by the fact that he was used to somewhat different “social norms” and would continue to behave towards the personal space of other people with great respect. It is worth noting that the information in the media, according to which the Senate employee was subjected to sexual harassment by Biden about thirty years ago, did not cause any wide discussion in society. Biden was also charged with sexual assault, but evidence that would be irrefutable was never presented.
Later, Biden was recognized as an ardent homophobe, as he opposed same-sex marriage and in every possible way promoted laws that would prohibit homosexuals from serving in the army.
While serving as vice president, Biden tried in every possible way to atone for his past sins by speaking out for the rights of African Americans (Biden was accused of racism). In addition, he began to actively declare the need for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and also personally married several gay couples.
At the beginning of his career as a senator, Biden was one of the poorest representatives of Parliament, and in order to give his sons a proper education, he was forced to resort to credit. As part of his latest election campaign, Biden emphasized that despite the fact that he had been in politics for several decades, this did not bring him wealth. Biden prefers not to focus on the fact that he receives the main fees for lecturing, continuing to call himself a representative of the middle class.
