Who Is Joe Biden?

1. Scranton, Delaware, and a stutter overcome

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on 20 November 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the eldest of four children of Catherine Eugenia Biden and Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. His family moved to Claymont, Delaware, in 1953, where he grew up. He attended Archmere Academy in Claymont and overcame a childhood stutter, a struggle he has spoken about throughout his career and which has become one of the best-known parts of his personal story. He graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965 with a degree in history and political science, and from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968.

He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969, worked briefly as a public defender, and then practised law in Wilmington before entering politics. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970, and to the US Senate from Delaware in 1972 at the age of 29, becoming one of the youngest people ever elected to the Senate. The election made him a national figure before he had held any significant office, and it set the pattern for a career in which he would repeatedly be described as a man of the Senate — a legislator first, and a national politician second.

Weeks after his election, in December 1972, his first wife Neilia and their one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car accident, and his sons Beau and Hunter were seriously injured. He was sworn in as a senator at the hospital where his sons were being treated. The tragedy shaped his public image for the rest of his career: he commuted daily by train between Delaware and Washington so that he could be home with his sons each night, and he spoke openly about grief in a way that few politicians of his generation did. His son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, a loss that again brought his private grief into public view.

2. Thirty-six years in the Senate

Biden served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009, chairing the Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995 and the Foreign Relations Committee. As chair of the Judiciary Committee he presided over the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork in 1987 and Clarence Thomas in 1991. The Thomas hearings, in which the nominee was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, remain one of the most debated episodes of his Senate career: critics have argued that Biden, as chair, failed to handle the hearings fairly, while his supporters have argued that he followed the procedures of the time and that the hearings reflected the politics of the Senate rather than his own choices.

He authored the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, a law that provided federal funding for the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women and that remains one of the most cited achievements of his Senate career. He also worked on crime legislation, including the 1994 crime bill, which supporters credit with reducing violent crime and critics argue contributed to mass incarceration — a debate that returned during his 2020 presidential campaign, when he defended the bill's provisions on violence against women and assault weapons while acknowledging that some of its measures had consequences he had not intended.

He ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008, withdrawing on both occasions. The 1988 campaign ended after reports that he had used material from other politicians' speeches without attribution, an episode that damaged his reputation for years. The 2008 campaign ended early in the primaries, but it brought him to the attention of Barack Obama, who selected him as his running mate. The choice was widely read as a balance: Obama, young and new to national politics, chose a running mate with decades of experience in Washington and with credibility on foreign policy and working-class voters.

3. Vice president, 2009–2017

As the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017, Biden oversaw the implementation of the 2009 economic recovery legislation, the response to the financial crisis that had begun in 2008, and led the administration's policy on Iraq, including the withdrawal of American combat troops in 2011. He was given the kind of substantive portfolio that vice presidents do not always receive, and he became known as the administration's main channel to Congress, using his decades of Senate relationships to negotiate with legislators of both parties.

His eight years as vice president also included the decision, in 2011, to support the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a decision on which he is reported to have advised caution, and the administration's response to the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. He was a central figure in the administration's foreign policy, and his long experience in the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee gave him a credibility on international affairs that few vice presidents have had. He was also the administration's most visible link to working-class and Catholic voters, constituencies that had been central to the Democratic coalition for generations.

By the end of the Obama administration, Biden was widely regarded as a potential presidential candidate for 2016, but the death of his son Beau in 2015 led him to decide against running. The decision was announced in October 2015, and it was one of the most consequential non-decisions of recent American politics: had he run, the Democratic primary of 2016, and the election that followed, might have unfolded very differently. Instead he left office in January 2017 as a respected elder statesman, with no clear path back to power — and then, three years later, he ran for president and won.

4. The 2020 campaign and the presidency

In 2020 Biden won the Democratic nomination after a campaign that began poorly — he finished fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire — and then revived with a decisive victory in South Carolina, after which his rivals withdrew and endorsed him. He defeated incumbent president Donald Trump in the general election, taking office as the 46th president on 20 January 2021. He was the first president to serve alongside a woman vice president, Kamala Harris, and at 78 he was the oldest person to take the oath of office.

His presidency included the American Rescue Plan in March 2021, a large economic relief package passed in response to the pandemic; the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in November 2021, which provided funding for roads, bridges, broadband and other infrastructure; and the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which provided support for semiconductor manufacturing and for climate and energy policy. Supporters credit these laws with the largest public investment in infrastructure and climate policy in a generation, and with the rebuilding of American alliances. Critics argue that the spending contributed to the inflation that rose sharply during his presidency, and that the laws' benefits were overstated.

His presidency also saw the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, which ended America's longest war but was carried out in chaotic circumstances, with the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and a bombing at Kabul airport that killed American service members and Afghan civilians. The withdrawal is one of the most contested episodes of his presidency: supporters argue that ending the war was the right decision and that the chaos reflected the failure of twenty years of American policy, while critics argue that the execution was a failure of planning and leadership. The debate continues, and it is one of the central questions in any assessment of his presidency.

5. Ukraine, alliances, and foreign policy

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Biden coordinated Western support for Ukraine, including large-scale military aid and sanctions on Russia, and worked to hold together the alliance of countries supporting Kyiv. Supporters credit him with rebuilding alliances that they argue had been strained in the previous administration, and with leading a united Western response to the largest war in Europe since 1945. Critics argue that the aid was too slow or too limited, or conversely that the scale of American support was too great, and the debate over the level and the terms of support for Ukraine has continued through the administrations that followed his.

His administration also pursued a policy of competition with China, including restrictions on the export of advanced semiconductors, and maintained the tariffs on Chinese goods imposed by the previous administration. On the Middle East, his administration supported Israel after the attacks of October 2023 while also pressing for humanitarian aid to Gaza, a position that drew criticism from both supporters of Israel, who wanted stronger support, and critics of the war, who wanted the United States to condition its aid. The pattern of his foreign policy was consistent with his Senate career: a belief in alliances, in American leadership of the Western world, and in the use of American power through institutions rather than unilaterally.

His decision to pardon his son Hunter in December 2024, after previously saying he would not do so, drew criticism from both parties. Supporters of the pardon argued that the prosecution of Hunter Biden had been politically motivated and that a father could be expected to act; critics argued that the pardon undermined Biden's own statements about the independence of the justice system and set a poor precedent. The episode, coming in the final weeks of his presidency, coloured the end of his time in office and remains a subject of debate.

6. The 2024 withdrawal and the end of a career

After a poor debate performance in June 2024 and pressure from fellow Democrats, Biden withdrew from the re-election race on 21 July 2024 and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. The decision followed weeks of public debate about his age and fitness for office, a debate that had been running throughout his presidency and that intensified after the debate. Supporters of the decision argued that it was an act of selflessness, putting the party's chances ahead of his own ambition; critics argued that he should have withdrawn earlier, and that the delay harmed the Democratic campaign. Harris lost the election to Donald Trump in November 2024, and Biden left office on 20 January 2025.

The questions about his age and fitness are the most sensitive part of his record, and they are also the part on which the public record is most contested. His supporters point to a presidency that passed major legislation, managed alliances through a major European war, and ended without scandal, and argue that the focus on his age was unfair. His critics point to the debate performance, to the withdrawal itself, and to the concerns expressed by members of his own party, and argue that the questions were legitimate and were answered too late. This article records both assessments without taking a side, because the evidence on which a final judgement will rest — including the full record of his final year in office — is still being assembled.

In May 2025, four months after leaving office, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones, and he began hormone and radiation therapy. Claims that he concealed the diagnosis during his presidency have been rejected by Biden, who says the diagnosis came in May 2025, after he left office, when urinary symptoms led to an examination. His office said the cancer had spread to his bones by the time it was found. The timing of the diagnosis has been publicly debated, and this article records Biden's account and the fact that the debate exists, without settling it.

7. Legacy: the legislator who became president

Biden is remembered as a career legislator who reached the presidency after nearly five decades in national politics, and as the oldest person to hold the office. His legislative record is the centre of his claim to historical significance: the Violence Against Women Act, the chairmanship of two of the Senate's most powerful committees, and the infrastructure, semiconductor and climate laws of his presidency. Supporters credit his legislative record, including the rebuilding of alliances, while critics point to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, inflation during his presidency, and questions about his age and fitness that led to his withdrawal from the 2024 race.

Compared with other presidents, Biden resembles Lyndon Johnson in his identity as a Senate master who became president, and George H. W. Bush in his identity as a vice president who succeeded his own president. He differs from both in the length of his career before the presidency and in the circumstances of his departure: no president since Johnson in 1968 had withdrawn from a re-election race under pressure from his own party, and no president had left office under quite the same combination of age, health and political circumstance.

Because he is a living person whose public record continues, any judgement of his legacy is provisional. The laws of his presidency will be judged by their long-term effects, which are not yet clear; the withdrawal from Afghanistan will be judged by the history of the region, which is still unfolding; and the question of his fitness for office will be judged by historians with access to records that are not yet public. What is already clear is that his career is one of the longest in American political history, and that it ended in a way that no one, including Biden himself, had expected when he took the oath of office in 2021.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Joe Biden
• Wikipedia — Joe Biden
• The White House (archived) — Joseph R. Biden

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• Who Was Don Bradman? — Don Bradman was an Australian cricketer who averaged 99.94 in Test cricket, a record so far ahead of any other batsman that it remains famous in sport.
• Who Was Elvis Presley? — Elvis Presley took gospel, country and rhythm and blues and turned them into rock and roll, becoming the most famous singer of his century.
• Who Was Emily Dickinson? — Emily Dickinson was an American poet who wrote nearly 1,800 poems in private in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was barely published in her lifetime.
• Who Was Faiz Ahmed Faiz? — Faiz Ahmed Faiz was Pakistan's most celebrated modern Urdu poet, whose verse joined romantic lyricism with resistance to injustice.
• Who Was Franz Beckenbauer? — Franz Beckenbauer was a German footballer known as Der Kaiser, who won the World Cup as captain in 1974 and as manager in 1990.
• Who Was Freddie Mercury? — Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of Queen, a four-octave voice and fearless showman who wrote Bohemian Rhapsody and We Are the Champions.
• Who Was Frida Kahlo? — Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for uncompromising, brilliantly coloured self-portraits exploring identity, the body and death.
• Who Was Galileo Galilei? — Galileo Galilei reshaped astronomy with his telescopic discoveries of 1610, defended a Sun-centred universe, and was tried by the Inquisition in 1633.
• Who Was Genghis Khan? — Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and built the largest contiguous land empire in history, a conqueror and lawgiver whose legacy is still argued over.
• Who Was George Washington? — George Washington won American independence, presided over the Constitutional Convention, and as first president defined the office — then walked away.
• Who Was Guglielmo Marconi? — Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor who built the first practical wireless telegraph and sent the first transatlantic radio signal in 1901.
• Who Was Henry Ford? — Henry Ford was an American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company, built the Model T and perfected the moving assembly line.
• Who Was Isaac Newton? — Isaac Newton wrote the laws of motion and universal gravitation, invented calculus and transformed optics, leaving a lasting legacy in science.
• Who Was James Watt? — James Watt did not invent the steam engine, but his separate condenser of 1765 made it efficient enough to power the Industrial Revolution.
• Who Was Jane Austen? — Jane Austen published six novels in her lifetime, anonymously, and died at 41. This explains her life, her novels, her irony and her growing reputation.
• Who Was Jesus Christ? — Jesus of Nazareth is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. This explains his life in the Gospels, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Johan Cruyff? — Johan Cruyff was the star of Total Football, won three Ballon d'Or awards, and as a manager built the Barcelona team that shaped modern football.
• Who Was Johannes Gutenberg? — Johannes Gutenberg built the first mechanised printing press in Europe and printed the Gutenberg Bible around 1455, changing how the world shared ideas.
• Who Was John Keats? — John Keats died of tuberculosis in Rome at 25, having written his six great odes in a single year. This explains his short life, his poetry and his fame.
• Who Was Joseph Stalin? — Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1953, industrialised the country and led it through the Second World War, ruling through terror.
• Who Was Julius Caesar? — Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, crossed the Rubicon and remade Rome's calendar and government, and was murdered by senators who feared he would be king.
• Who Was Kobe Bryant? — Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers and became known for the Mamba Mentality, on and off the court.
• Who Was Leo Tolstoy? — Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, then abandoned literary fame for a radical moral philosophy that influenced Gandhi and the world.
• Who Was Leonardo da Vinci? — Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and filled notebooks with anatomy and engineering, becoming the symbol of the Renaissance.
• Who Was Ludwig van Beethoven? — Ludwig van Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas and the Missa Solemnis, much of it while deaf. This explains his life and legacy.
• Who Was Mahatma Gandhi? — Mahatma Gandhi led India to independence through nonviolent resistance, and his ideas shaped civil-rights movements worldwide.
• Who Was Mao Zedong? — Mao Zedong founded the People's Republic of China in 1949 and led it until 1976, bringing unification and the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.
• Who Was Margaret Thatcher? — Margaret Thatcher was the first woman to serve as British prime minister, leading the UK from 1979 to 1990 through reform, the Falklands War and division.
• Who Was Marie Curie? — Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium and remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, a pioneer of radioactivity research.
• Who Was Marilyn Monroe? — Marilyn Monroe was the biggest star of the 1950s, the blonde bombshell of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot, who fought the studio system.
• Who Was Mark Twain? — Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and became America's most famous humorist.
• Who Was Maya Angelou? — Maya Angelou was a poet, memoirist and civil rights activist whose autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings made her widely read.
• Who Was Michael Jackson? — Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, made Thriller, the best-selling album in history, and changed music video, dance and pop stardom.
• Who Was Mirza Ghalib? — Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869) is the pre-eminent Urdu and Persian poet of the last Mughal era, whose ghazals on love, loss and doubt are still recited.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali Jinnah? — Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the barrister and statesman who led the All-India Muslim League and became Pakistan's first Governor-General in 1947.
• Who Was Muhammad Ali? — Muhammad Ali was the three-time heavyweight champion who called himself The Greatest, and the most famous athlete of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Napoleon Bonaparte? — Napoleon Bonaparte rose from Corsica to Emperor of the French, redrew the map of Europe, and left a legal code that still shapes law across the world.
• Who Was Nelson Mandela? — Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison under apartheid, then became South Africa's first democratically elected president and a Nobel Peace laureate.
• Who Was Nikola Tesla? — Nikola Tesla developed the alternating-current power system, the induction motor and the Tesla coil, making long-distance electric power practical.
• Who Was Osama bin Laden? — Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda in 1988 and organised the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.
• Who Was Pablo Neruda? — Pablo Neruda was Chile's great poet, a Nobel laureate, a communist senator and a diplomat. This explains his poetry, his politics and his death.
• Who Was Pablo Picasso? — Pablo Picasso co-founded Cubism, painted Guernica, and spent 75 years breaking the rules of art — the most influential artist of the twentieth century.
• Who Was Pelé? — Pele is the only footballer to win three World Cups, the youngest winner, and the game's first global icon. This is his life, his goals and his legacy.
• Who Was Pope Francis? The People's Pope — Pope Francis, the first pope from the Americas and the first Jesuit pope, led the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025 with an emphasis on mercy and the poor.
• Who Was Prophet Muhammad? — The Prophet Muhammad is the founder of Islam, the world's second-largest religion. This explains his life, his teachings and his legacy.
• Who Was Queen Elizabeth II? — Queen Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years, from 1952 to 2022 — the longest reign in British history. This explains her life, her reign and her legacy.
• Who Was Rabindranath Tagore? — Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the author of the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
• Who Was Rosa Parks? — Rosa Parks was not a tired seamstress who acted on impulse. She was a trained activist and NAACP secretary whose bus refusal was a deliberate act.
• Who Was Rosalind Franklin? — Rosalind Franklin's X-ray image, Photograph 51, gave Watson and Crick the key evidence for the double helix. This is her life and the credit debate.
• Who Was Rumi? — Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet of Konya, wrote the Masnavi and the Divan-e Shams, and became the most widely read poet in the world.
• Who Was Shane Warne? — Shane Warne took 708 Test wickets, bowled the Ball of the Century in 1993 and won the 1999 World Cup with Australia. This explains his career.
• Who Was Stephen Hawking? — Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist who showed that black holes emit radiation and wrote A Brief History of Time. He died in 2018, aged 76.
• Who Was Steve Jobs? — Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, was forced out in 1985, built Pixar, and returned to launch the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. He died in 2011, aged 56.
• Who Was Thomas Edison? — Thomas Edison held 1,093 US patents, invented the phonograph and the practical incandescent lamp, and built the first commercial electric power system.
• Who Was Vincent van Gogh? — Vincent van Gogh produced about 2,100 artworks in a single decade, including The Starry Night and Sunflowers, and became famous only after his death at 37.
• Who Was William Shakespeare? — William Shakespeare is the most performed playwright in history, yet almost nothing is reliably known about his private life.
• Who Was William Wordsworth? — William Wordsworth launched English Romanticism with Lyrical Ballads and wrote The Prelude, the great autobiographical poem. This explains his life.
• Who Was Winston Churchill? — Winston Churchill led Britain through the Second World War and won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and his record on empire is still debated.
• Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who composed more than 600 works before his death at 35, defining the Classical era.
• Why Van Gogh Became Famous After Death — Vincent van Gogh died in 1890 almost unknown, and within a few decades his paintings were among the most loved in the world.