President Joe Biden on the Howard Stern Show

(Singing).

Sitting and listening to Bruce Springsteen, I am live. I know typically on a Friday I am not live, but I decided to break into my own channel, because I’m sitting here with a phenomenal guest, somebody I wanted to meet for the longest time, and somebody I’m an admirer of and somebody I adore. And it is not someone doing an impression, it is the real President of the United States of America, President Joe Biden, and welcome.

I think I should leave now.

Yeah, it’s a pretty good introduction. I know everyone’s going to think I’m doing a fake interview with you, but yet you are really here.

Happy to be here.

And I played Bruce Springsteen because he did this at your inauguration.

Yep.

I figured that’d be a good way to start things off.

It is. I like him.

Yeah. No, he is terrific, and I know he’s a big fan of yours too, by the way. As we start, I have to compliment you on something. Yesterday, you did something so great, and I don’t know how many people are aware of it, but you got this thing with the airline passed, that now, when an airline, for some reason, screws you up and doesn’t let you… Whether you can’t make the flight, they used to give you credit, but now they are forced to refund you, and I think that’s a huge deal.

Well, there’s a lot of those, Howard. The fact is that when you’re raised and you come up in a middle class family, all this stuff matters to you. It matters to you, those little items that they say, “Well, it only costs this, it only costs that.”

Yeah.

It matters. And so, there’s a lot of junk fees too, for example, banks can’t charge you $35 for overdrafts anymore, they’ll only cost you $3 or $8, a whole range of things that matter. My dad used to say, at the end of the month, “How much you got left?”

Yeah.

“How much you got left?”

Right. Speaking of your dad, you mind if I take you back in time?

No, whatever you want to ask, talk about it.

Okay. Because this is thrilling for me, and I’m just really excited you’re here, my nerves have to… I’m really nervous, and I’ve been doing this forever. I’m nervous, man, I really am. But going back to your father, was your father a political guy, or your mother, was it a political family?

No, they weren’t political. They were engaged in those… They voted all the time, and they… Look, my mom and dad, they were people who were just typical middle class people, values mattered a lot to them. It was constantly banged in our heads, my dad, I have it on my desk, you’ve got to come to my Oval Office and see it, I was complaining one day, I was showing…

(02:32)
My dad came over to do a fundraiser at my house, I had been a senator a long time, he was going to be there with me. We were standing out in the back overlooking this little pond, and I said, “I sure wish my deceased wife could see this.” She liked the upstate New York. And my dad said, “I’ll be back in a minute.” He went up to the local [inaudible 00:02:52] store, and he came back with a framed photograph of Hagar the Horrible with two scenes in it, Hagar’s boat is struck lightning and it’s going down, and he has his hand up in the sky, and said, “Why me, God?” And the next line is, “Why not?” My dad said, “What makes you special? It’s going to happen to you too.”

Wow.

That was my dad? You never complain, you never explain.

See, the reason I think yours… Everyone I know who knows you says, “One thing about the president, he is a compassionate guy,” and I feel like your father was really behind you and really on your team. And what was striking to me about your father is, before you were born, your father had money.

Yes.

He had means, he was doing well in life.

Yep.

And then, he lost everything.

Yep.

And in your life, you’ve been surrounded by so much loss. And I said if I ever get to meet you, I want to ask you about this, and this is the theme, how you deal with loss. But even you were born, you had a father who had to be depressed in some way, because he’d had affluence and he’d lost it all. Did that affect your early life?

No, because my dad… There used to be a joke in the family, my dad would get up and he’d always be whistling in the morning. My dad was one of these guys that said, “Tomorrow’s going to be better.” For real. My dad was a guy who… The one thing my dad cared most about was dignity, people with dignity and being treated with dignity. And my dad used to have an expression, he’d say, “Joey, your job’s about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity, it’s about respect, it’s about being treated with respect.” And to my dad…

(04:29)
But I always admired my dad because he did have a lot. There’s a famous phrase in the family, when my dad really wants something, my mom would really get mad at my dad, the greatest swipe she’d take at him, he said… This particular guy who they started a business, they were doing well, my dad was out selling, came back, turned out the guy had big gambling debts, and he’d lost everything. That’s how everything got lost.

What was he selling?

He had a furniture company.

Okay.

And so, anyway, what happened was, when the police came to him and said, “You can bring charges,” he said, “I can’t do that. I’m godfather to his daughter.”

Wow.

So every time my mother would [inaudible 00:05:12] my dad wouldn’t strike back in some way, she’d say, “I know, your godfather to his daughter.”

So you feel like you were emotionally fed by your father, in other words, he was a man, he was relatable, you could go to him with a problem?

Well, it’s interesting, my dad was old-fashioned in the sense that my dad wasn’t the guy… I don’t ever remember my… I knew he adored me, but I never heard my dad… My dad wasn’t, “I love you,” because it was a generational thing, men didn’t say that then. But my dad put his arm around me, my dad come to the games. For example, I remember starting off playing Catholic League football, [inaudible 00:05:50] football.

By the way, I don’t think a lot of people know that you were a star receiver in high school.

In high school.

You were the first string guy.

Yeah.

You were the guy who caught the ball.

Runner-up in state scoring.

Wow.

But I was a runt. Anyway, but my dad, I remember getting knocked out when I was in fourth grade playing-

Concussion?

Well, I guess it was, but we didn’t know, it was just knocked out.

Right.

And my dad walked out on the field and said, “Joey, get up. Just get up, man. You’ve got to get up. Get up.” If I were going to explain my dad, it’s, “Just get up. Just get up.” My dad was always positive. My mother was one of those who was… She’d say, “Joey, as long as you’re… It’s an actual quote she’s used more than once. “As long as you’re alive, Joey, you have an obligation to strive. You’re not dead till you’re seeing the face of God, Joey, get up. Get up.”

What I like about your mother is, and tell me if this story is true, that it’s famous now that you were a stutterer as a boy.

Yes.

You suffered from a horrible stutter, and there was a nun who decided to really goof on you and screw with you. And your mother marched down there and said to that nun, “I’m going to rip the habit off your head if you sit there and make fun of my son.” Wow. Is it true?

Well, it is true. It’s probably the best thing that ever happened to me, I’m not joking, was I stuttered, because I learned… We have a rule in our family, and my mom’s family as well, and my dad, that no matter what a jerk someone else is, you can never say anything about them that’s true. If they’re fat and ugly, you couldn’t say, “You’re fat,” you could say, “You’re stupid” in a fight, whatever it was. And my mom was one of these people who, she’d say… When I’d stutter, I used to t-t-talk like-like that.

It was that bad?

It was that bad.

Oh, God.

But not with my friends, with my friends, I’d occasionally stutter, but when I had to read in school, when I had to do things like that, and a particular nun… And the nuns were great, I had them for eight years. But this one nun, I was reading, you read in alphabetical order and I knew my part was coming up, and so, one thing led to another, and I used to memorize the lines that I was going to have to read because it’s easier than looking at the paper.

Yeah.

And I said, “Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentle man.” And the nun said, “What’s that word, Master Biden?” I said, “Gentleman.” She said, “Mr. B-B-Biden.”

Oh.

And I got up and walked out of class.

Really?

You don’t do that.

Wow.

And I went home, and my mother, she was tapping her fingers on the kitchen table, she said, “Get in the car,” with my younger brother [inaudible 00:08:40]. I remember walking in, the nun was… There was a little ante room to the nun’s office, and she had me sit down and hold my brother. Anyway, I could hear, the door was cracked, and said, “What happened, Sister?” To the Mother Superior. She said, ” Well, it doesn’t matter. He just was so rude, he walked out of class, he can’t do that.” The next thing I know, she said, I’m not going to mention her name, “Can you bring Sister down?”

(09:10)
Brought her down, I could see them, there was a crack in the door, and I could see the profile of my mom, who was 5’1″, about 102 pounds or something, and she said, “What happened?” The nun said what happened. She said, “Did you say Mr. B-B-Biden?” She said, “Well, I was just making an point, Mrs. Biden.” She said, ” If you ever speak to my son like that, I’m going to come back and rip that damn bonnet off your head. Do you understand me?”

Wow.

“Do you understand?” She gets up and, “Joey, let’s go.” No more screwing around.

Well, the fact that you have the balls to walk out of a classroom, it says something about you too. You know what? You set some boundaries. Hey, you can sit there and goof on me, I’m out of here. I don’t know that I would’ve been able to do something like that, honestly.

Well, I don’t know about that, but it taught me a lot. And like I said, no one in my family, no matter what a jerk somebody was, you could never say something about them that was true, that they couldn’t control.

Yeah. Your family is pretty… Again, this goes to my point about the president is the father of our country, that’s something we all say, and I think your family is so extraordinary, because of the way they’ve conducted themselves and how they are with you, that I feel you have a lot to give to the presidency, these are my feelings. Because I’m thinking about this, it’s a horrible point in your life, but again, we’re talking about loss. When you were in college, you met your first wife, fabulous woman. Wasn’t she the prom queen or the-

Yeah, she was homecoming queen [inaudible 00:10:49], yeah.

Homecoming queen. You met this beautiful woman.

I did.

And you asked her out, and she agrees to go out with you. And it was, by all accounts, a fabulous marriage and a fabulous kind of life.

It was.

You were a new… What were you? You had just run for senate? Well-

No, I hadn’t run yet.

County council.

I hadn’t even done that yet.

Yeah.

I was just out of law school.

By the way, before we get to your first wife, when you get out of law school, you get some kind of job working for the local Republicans, they were-

Well, when I got a job, I got a job with one of the best, most prestigious plaintiff firms in the state. But Dr. King was killed that summer, that year, and we were the only city in America occupied by the National Guard for 10 months, withdrawing bayonets on every corner.

Yeah.

And so, I quit and became a public defender.

That’s what I want to ask you about. So you’re working at some law firm, and you realize you’re representing big corporations and stuff, guys who probably you don’t identify with. You quit, you go across the street and become a public defender, and you’re defending poor families who can’t afford a good lawyer. That’s pretty noble.

Well, I didn’t think it was being noble, I thought of it as being the way to fight back against what was happening to a lot of, particularly, we had the eighth-largest Black population as a percent of population in the country, and we were segregated by law for a long time, we were one of those slave states literally that fought on the side of the north. And there was a big debate as to whether or not the Democratic Party was part of the mainstream northeastern Democratic Party, or more of a southern Democratic Party. So I became a public defender and went to work with a group of senior guys, who were much my senior, called the New Democratic Coalition, to try to reform the Democratic Party. That’s how I got engaged in that.

Was there some part of you that said, “Geez, I went to law school, I should be making a lot of money”? When you decide to become a public defender, it’s a noble thing.

Well, no, I never thought of it that way. For some reason, I never thought, being a lawyer, I was going to make a lot of money. I thought, being a lawyer, I could do some good things, representing people, not as a public defender, but as a lawyer when they’re injured, or as a lawyer that they… So it wasn’t so much that, I can’t say I went in thinking I was going to make a lot of money. But switching to the public defender side, granted, I made a little less money, but it wasn’t so much that, I really felt strongly about having to change the environment in the state, and it was a way to get engaged in changing the political environment.

At that point in your life, do you go to court and you stand up and argue in front of the judge?

Yes.

No kidding. What were some of the cases like? These are people who are accused of horrendous crimes, of heinous crimes?

Well, some were. I’ve had a couple of murder cases, those things, but a lot of them were cases where they were accused of things that weren’t… I didn’t think rose to the level of being a crime that they intentionally committed.

Right.

But it was all over the board, you didn’t get to choose what case you got. People came in, and they had everything from murder to burglary to assault, those kinds of things.

What a pressure, right? Somebody’s life is in your hands. You talk about the presidency being a pressure, or being a senator-

Well, that’s true. That part, I think every defense attorney feels that way, if you’re on that side of the aisle. And a number of these people, some were guilty, it turns out-

Right.

… but some were totally innocent, and those are the cases you just wonder, “How in God’s name do I tell the husband, the wife, the son, the daughter, that they’ve been found guilty?”

Did you hate law school?

No, no.

Was law a passion of yours, or-

No, it wasn’t. Look, I was a jerk in law school. What happened was I’d got an opportunity to go to some more prestigious law schools, but didn’t have the money to get there, so I was-

You were at Syracuse?

I was at Syracuse. It’s a good law school.

Right.

But I thought I was going to go to either Cornell or… Anyway.

But why were you a jerk in law school?

Well, I didn’t take it seriously enough. For example, I didn’t buy my textbooks until middle of the first semester.

That’s a good move.

There’s this thing, I shouldn’t say this, it was embarrassing, but there was a guy named Bob Osgood who graduated number one in our class and became a senior partner at one of the major law firms in New York. And you get called on, we had a very tough professor, a good professor, great professor, taught torts, and you get called on in class, you stand up and recite what the case is about. And so, I hadn’t read the case, and so he called on me, and I stood up, and I went through this whole thing as if I had read the case, and Bob Osgood stands up and starts to clap, the whole… And the professor looked at me and said, “Mr. Biden, that’s incredible. It had nothing to do with the case, but if you ever learn to read a case, you’re going to be okay.”

Wow, what a distinguished law school event.

Oh, God. I was embarrassed.

So when you’re in law school, this is when you went to the Bahamas on spring break and met your first wife?

Yes. Well, yeah, actually, I wasn’t in law school, I was in college, and I was a junior in college, I got my $85 tax return, and a bunch of guys, we got in the car and we went down to Fort Lauderdale.

Ah, Fort Lauderdale, okay.

And I’m the only Irish you’ve ever met who’s never had a drink in his life, and all anybody did was they were just drinking and drunk. And so, I found out you could go to Nassau for $20 round trip, and I’d never been on a commercial airline.

Yeah.

So I convinced two of my buddies to go on a commercial airline, to go to Nassau.

And by the way, remember those days too, it was like… I remember the first time I went away, you got dressed up to go on an airplane-

Yeah, that’s right.

It was a big deal.

Yeah, that’s right.

Right.

And to make a long story short, we thought there would be less just dancing and drinking, and not that these guys opposed it, but there’d be college girls there. And it turns out, we’d go to the beach, and they’re all locals and there’s nobody there. All the hotels had, at the time, the British Colonial Hotel had a chain link fence that ran down the length of the property, out into the ocean. And so, what we did, there was nobody there, so we grabbed towels off the chain link fence that had British Colonial on it, three of us, and we just walked right out to the pool like we were there.

Yeah.

And there was this young woman who was particularly attractive, I thought, and I said, “I’m going to go talk to her.” And this other guy, Mike, said, “Bo, I’m going.” Third guy flipped a coin, I won.

Wow.

And then, we went and sat down, and I’m talking to her-

Would you have honored that, when you flipped the coin, if the other guy won?

Yeah. No, that was the deal.

Yeah? That was the deal.

And so, anyway, to make a long story short. I’m sitting talking, I said, “Hi, my name’s Joe Biden, I’m from Delaware.” She said, “My name is Neilia Hunter, I’m from Syracuse.” And I started talking to her, and she’s lying on the chaise lounge, I’m at the foot, and I’m looking out at the ocean, because the sun was coming toward the ocean, and I see this guy. I’m watching, talking to her, and I’m watching this yacht pull up. The guy gets out with

… the hat and the white pants. And he gets in a dinghy and he rows to the shore. And I’m just curious, watching him. And he walks right up to Neilia, where I’m sitting by the pool. He said, “Neilia, we on for dinner tonight?” She said, “Oh, I’m sorry, John,” she said, “Joe and I are going to dinner, I apologize.” He huffed off. She said, “I’m so embarrassed. I just didn’t want to do it.” I said, “Why don’t we go to dinner?” I had 22 bucks left, I think it was. So we go to this place to dinner, and you could buy McDonald’s hamburgers for 19 cents in those days. So at this nice restaurant, I ordered a hamburger. And her family had money, but she ordered the same thing. She was very gracious. And bill comes, and I was 20 bucks short, and I could feel a tap under the table on my knee. And I put my hand down and she put 40 bucks in my hand.

Oh my God.

And I said, “I’m so embarrassed.” She said, “Oh, it happens to my dad all the time.” It never [inaudible 00:19:56].

Oh, you had to fall in love right in that moment?

By the way, I did. And walking her back, I never kissed her, never went in her room, never went to bed with her. And I’m like a horse’s tail, you know how they have those chains that separate parking lots from the walkways?

Yeah.

I go to jump over it, I trip, fall flat on my ass. And she says, “Oh, that’s okay. It’s high.” And I got up, and a stupid thing to say, I said, “You know, I think I’m going to marry you.” And she looked at me, my word as a Biden, and she said, “I think maybe.” I quit the football team and started to commute every single weekend up to Syracuse, New York, which I did for the next so many years.

You played football for Syracuse too after high school?

No, no, no, no. This is at Delaware.

Oh, okay. Delaware. Yeah.

Delaware.

Wow.

I had been a freshman, my grades were terrible. My mother made me quit. My grades came back up. I went back out my junior year in spring practice and I was designated… They thought I might be the safety and I’d make the team, but I quit. I didn’t go back because I just fell ass over tin cups in love with her.

Wow. Unbelievable.

That’s a true story.

It’s a crazy story, you know? And I mean the fact that a lot of guys would’ve said, “You know what? I think you’re going to be my wife,” and she might’ve head for the hills. You know what I mean? And said, “This guy’s crazy. He’s in love already and he thinks you’re going to-”

No man deserves one great love, let alone two. I mean, I really did. I mean, it was true. It’s like when I met Jill, when I lost my family, I got put in that 10 most eligible bachelors list.

Because you were a United States senator. You were a catch.

And a lot of lovely women, but women would send very salacious pictures. And I just give them to the Secret Service. I thought somebody would think I was… And I just gave up. I got a call from my brother, he said, “I know a girl here at Delaware.” Jill’s nine years younger than I am. He said, “You’ll love her. She doesn’t like politics.”

Well, that’s my point about your family, and this is what I love about your family. Your brother, Frank is your youngest brother. He’s the one who introduces you to your second wife, Jill. When you lost your wife… Now listen, what, did you date for two years after you met in The Bahamas and then you got married, right?

Right.

It was a great romance. And you had three children. You had a daughter and two sons, and you had a young family. You had just been elected to the United States Senate. And the worst thing ever happens in your life. It’s a horrible tragedy. Your wife was in a car accident, some truck hit her, and you lost your 13-month-old daughter. And I get the chills when I say it because I can’t imagine this kind of loss. You lose your 13-month-old daughter, you lose your wife and your two boys end up in the hospital.

Yes.

I can’t even imagine that kind of loss. Here’s the love of your life. You have this beautiful romance, love at first sight, I would say, I don’t know how you recover from something like that. I just don’t know.

Family. Look, I spend a lot of time because… Anyway, when you’ve been through something tough, and everybody has in their life, and people know it and you survive it, people come to you and ask basically, “How?” They want to… And so, one of the things I had, I had my mother, my father, my best friend in the world is my sister, my younger sister, my brother, Jimmy, Frankie, the whole family and everybody just… For example, what I would do, I didn’t want to stay in the US Senate, and I let everybody know I was going to have… We had a Democratic governor and he’s appoint a successor, another Democrat. And Senator Mansfield, Iron Mike from Montana, a man with more integrity in his little finger than most people have in their whole body, and Teddy Kennedy and a guy named Fritz Hollings from South Carolina, and Tom Eagleton and a few others, they all came to me and said, “Look, just stay six months. Help us organize.” Like a damn fool I said, “Okay, but I’m not going to stay.” And I started commuting back and forth on a train to Delaware, 300 miles round trip a day. And-

The reason you were commuting is you wanted to be near your two boys because they’d lost their mother, they lost their sister. You needed to be involved. So you would get on the Amtrak. They called you Amtrak Joe, right?

Yeah.

And you would commute to DC and do your job?

Right and go home. But the real reason, there is no way, and that’s why I’m so empathetic to people who need child care, I could not afford child care even if I did move from Delaware. I was listed for 36 years as the poorest man in the United States Congress. I’d never thought I was poor. I was getting a Senate salary, which was more than I’d ever made. But the end result was that my family was home. So for example, when the boys were really little, I’d go from my house, which is not far from where my parents lived, I’d drive, I’d be driven by my buddy Tommy Lewis, who worked for me. He’d drive me in, we’d drop the kids at my mom’s, and then I’d go on to the train station. So I had a whole network to take care of my family.

But that’s my point. What a family. Valerie, your sister, moves in basically to help you. Think about it. This wasn’t her burden, but she moved in.

She and her husband gave up their place. When I came home from… The boys were hospitalized. When I came home from the hospital, they had moved in.

I mean, what a gift. And your brother, Jimmy moves into the garage.

Exactly right. He made it a little apartment. Look, we have an expression in our family for real. If you have to ask, it’s too late. If you have to ask, it’s too late.

But you know most families aren’t like this. They are not. Valerie put her whole life on hold in order to help you raise your boys. And Jimmy moves into a garage and puts his life on hold just because they love you. That is the most loving… If I wrote a movie, you would say, “That’s a little over the top.”

Well, it’s who we are. I mean, it’s how we were raised.

The amount of gratitude. And here’s another thing I like about you. So you become Amtrak Joe. By the way, you were one of the youngest senators. You couldn’t even get sworn in. Your wife never got to see you sworn in because you were-

That’s correct.

Technically 28 years old, and you have to be-

29, and you have to be 30.

You have to be 30, you were 29. So she never got to see you get sworn in. She saw you win the seat. You were an unlikely winner, was mostly Republican district.

Well, Trump… I mean, excuse me, Freudian slip, Nixon only won by 60% in my state that year, and I won by 3,100 votes.

Well, God knows how you did that. But that’s what I mean about your family. Your old man was out there knocking on doors for you. They thought he was running for Senate, not you because you were a kid. It’s a pretty amazing family. And again-

I’m proud of it.

I submit for your approval that when you have a loving family like that, you got a lot to give because you get so much from them.

I agree.

Most people who aren’t generous are because they haven’t been given anything.

Well, the other thing is it’s an expectation in the family. Like I said before, probably the greatest gift I ever got was being a stutterer. Because you know what it’s like to be humiliated. You know what it’s like… I don’t want to exaggerate it. It’s not like I had a cleft palate or I had a clubfoot. But it’s something people make fun of. And you realize how humiliating it is. So it taught me to understand what other people are going through.

How’d you get rid of the stutter?

I’d practice. I’d stand in front of the mirror and just try to make sure that I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just worked. My mother used say, “Joey, come here. Look at me. Look at me. You’re smart. You’re handsome. You’re a good boy. Don’t let this define you. Don’t let it define you.” And I don’t want to exaggerate how debilitating it was, but it was easy to make fun of because when I tried to speak in public, when I tried to read… Reading and talking on the telephone are too hard things for stutterers. By the way, I’ve got a group now, I don’t know how many, it’s up to I think 38 kids, who are serious stutterers, since I’ve been president, who I engage with, who is still getting… There’s a young man, I’m so proud of him, he actually did my nominating speech for the 2020.

How did you get involved with these kids?

I’d meet them. For example, the one young man I met, I don’t want to mention his name, but I met, it was out in the Midwest and I was with his mom. I was doing a political event as vice president and I could see him. And you can tell a stutterer when they talk, just the way they began to move their lips. I said to him, I said, “You got a minute?” I said, “I got to work on my speech. Can you come with me?” And the mother looked at me and I said, “Before I go out and speak,” because I mark up my speeches… Did you ever see the movie, The King’s Speech?

Yes.

Well, the guy who wrote The King’s Speech contacted me and sent me a copy of The King’s Speech.

Great movie.

He actually used to put slash marks. So stuttering is about getting a cadence. At least for me.

It’s musical.

By the way, you notice a lot of singers are stutters.

That’s right.

Not a lot, but I mean, great singers are stutters.

Mel Tillis was like the guy… I mean, he had a horrible stutter.

That’s exactly. But if you learn to just make a little bit of, sounds choppy. But, ” I went to the movie with my wife that…” It’s not, “I went to the movie,” and so I practiced a lot. I used to stand in front of the mirror at night, and my siblings, were three of us in one bedroom, but I’d stand in front of the mirror. And I know a lot of poetry, particularly Irish poetry, because I’d practice it just… But I don’t want to exaggerate it, but it was real. And-

It’s real trauma, because especially look at the life you chose. You have to get up and make speeches. You have to debate people. You become a lawyer and you have to go argue in court on behalf of people. I mean, what could be more important than having a confident, fluent speech?

But by that time, I was over most of the stuttering. But for example, I mean, Trump makes fun of me. He was the kind of guy in the neighborhood wish he could have gotten in the neighborhood, meet head-to-head. At any rate-

By the way, speaking of that, didn’t you mother, the first fist fight you ever had, some bully in your neighborhood and your mother says to you, “Listen, go back to this bully,” I guess the guy really had it with you, and she said, “Go back and punch him in the face.”

Well, to be precise, in Scranton, we lived in a place called Green Ridge, and down the bottom of the hill by the Lackawanna River is called The Plot. And there was a family, I’ll not mention the name. They were pretty tough. And I was 14 years old, I guess. And they’d come up on what they called Dimmick Avenue, and anyway, they were up in the backyard. I walked out the yard with two of my friends, and this particular guy came up to me and smacked me. And I hold my face and I came back across the fence into the kitchen. My grandfather was there and he says, “What’s that?” I said, “He hit me.”

(31:52)
And I walked in and the pantry looked out on that avenue, that alley. And my mother said, “Joey, go back out there.” I said, “Mom, he’ll beat me up.” She said, “Joey, I have a quarter.” That was big. “If you go back out, but here’s what you do, Joey, wait, he’ll come back to you. As soon as he walks up to you, don’t do a single thing, except you got to hit him right in the nose, Joe, in the nose.” I was scared to death. She said, “So go out there, Joey.” So I went out, scared to death, got up across the little bank there. He walked up to me and I, with all the courage I had, I hit him and his nose started bleeding. He went, “Oh.” Took off.

Really?

Oh, I’m serious.

It’s a very cinematic life you’ve had. I mean, that’s a scene-

No, no, I’m serious. I know it sounds bizarre.

No, it doesn’t.

But everybody at home still kids me about it at home, meaning Scranton. Anyway, when I walked back, she said, “Here’s a quarter and I’ll get you another quarter tomorrow.”

When you became a football player, was that kid still going to school with you? Because I’m pretty sure-

No, he never went to school with me. He was a local kid.

I wonder if that guy’s still around. I mean, he sees you become President of the United States. I wonder if it’s… Do you ever do that? Do you ever go on Facebook and look up people that you grew up with and go, “Hey, look what became of me?”

No. No. I don’t do that. But I keep in contact with those people. I mean, the people, my friends, like went back home to Scranton last week, Larry Orr, a guy that we grew up with, known for 55 years, I invited Larry to come with me. He’s still around. And I’m getting so damn old, a lot of them are passed away these days.

I know, it’s depressing. But what about a woman who rejected you in high school? Now you could just say, “Hey, I’m the President of the United States.” That to me is the biggest rush in the world.

Well, no, I don’t think of it that way, Howard.

You should come into my world. That’s all I think about. It’s all about that.

Well, anyway…

Yeah, but anyway-

The only reason I was not allowed to go out with some girls was because I was Catholic.

Yeah, that was, I guess, your first wife, the family didn’t want anything to do with you because you were Catholic, right?

Well, my first wife, was up in Skaneateles, they were in Auburn, New York the family was really from, near Syracuse. And the father was an incredible guy, but his older sister was very involved in the Presbyterian church.

Wow. Can you believe that’s a thing? Can you believe back then that was a big thing. I don’t even know the difference between Catholic and Presbyterian.

I remember I went up like the fifth trip and Neilia looked at me, she said, “My dad told me I have to stop dating you because you’re a Catholic.” And I said, “Oh, man.” She looked at me, she said, “But I told him, ‘Don’t make me choose daddy. Don’t make me choose.'”

What a great woman.

But her dad actually showed up, which was really… I’m forever indebted to him, showed up at the Catholic Church in Skaneateles, and walked her up the aisle with me.

Wow. They got over the religious difference thing.

Yeah, yeah. I don’t think he cared. It was more a family pressure he had, I think.

So here’s the key question, and maybe it’s a difficult one to really get into, but when you lose the love of your life and you lose your 13-month-old daughter, which again, it gives me the chills even to say it to you, and I hate bringing it up, but at the same point, I think it’s useful. You described you were suicidal at that point. You thought about it.

Well, what I said was, I can understand, you don’t have to be nuts to commit suicide. I said, I don’t drink. That’s not a virtue, I just don’t-

Never drank?

I never drank. And I used to sit there and think to myself, I’d take out a bottle of scotch that was… We always had liquor in the house, my house as well. And I was going to just drink it and get drunk, and I could never bring myself to do it. And I actually thought about, you don’t have to be crazy to commit suicide. If you’ve been to the top of the mountain, you think it’s never going to be there again. And just a brief moment, I thought, “Maybe I just go to the Delaware Memorial Bridge and jump.” But I had two kids. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t like, “I got to commit suicide.” It was like, you’ve been to the top of the mountain and it’s never going to happen again. You’re never going to be okay. But I had my boys. My boys, when we started to date Jill… We started to date Jill.

Well, you did. Didn’t the boys give you permission to date Jill?

More than that. They came in one morning. We used to drive to school, we’d drop them off at school and Tommy Lewis would then drop me at the station on the way. And so I’m in the bathroom and they walk in, I’m brushing my teeth, and Beau looked at Hunter and said… And they’re second and third grade, I guess, maybe a little older fourth, anyway, in the early grades. And Beau looked at Hunt and said, “You tell him.” And he said, “No, you tell him.” Finally said, “Well, guys, what are you going to tell me?” And Beau said, “You know, Dad, Hunt and I think we should marry Jill.”

They liked her?

They liked her. And then we went up to my sister had a Jesuit friend who was… Because I didn’t know how to… Everybody was wonderful in my state when I lost my family. As the old expression goes, I had a lot of yentas who were… But they were really generous. But I didn’t know how to have a wedding and who to invite. So our families, her family and mine, we all went to New York and we got married at the UN Chapel by this Jesuit priest who was a friend of my sister’s. And literally spontaneously in the chapel when they said, “Who takes this woman?” And both boys got up from their seats and walked up. No, I’m serious.

And they said, “We do,”?

And they stood with me.

How great is that?

It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful.

It really is a wonderful story. Did you consider psychotherapy or speaking to a therapist at the time when you lose your family and you’re

No,

You’re in crisis?

I didn’t.

Were you-

I don’t know.

Because remember when Eagleton admitted that he had therapy or he had shock therapy or something and the Muskie cried? I think back on politics, it’s like almost like if you’re a politician, you’re not allowed to say I’m in therapy.

Well, by the way, I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage people to go to therapy. I strongly encourage people to deal with mental illness. It’s just like you’re breaking a bone in your body. But I guess because I had such an internal support, I mean I never considered it, but I wish I had. I remember when the boys were hospitalized, Hunter had a fractured skull from the accident, and Beau broke literally every bone in his body. He was in a body cast, both arms, both legs, and for a long time.

Is there anything worse than that? Not only losing your daughter, but when you see your kids-

No.

… I remember my kids, if anything happened to them, anything, like break a bone or something, you go out of your mind.

Well, what happened was that when I came home, I came to the hospital one day after work and there was a child psychologist from the University of Massachusetts that Teddy Kennedy had sent down. And I should have paid more attention. And he was wonderful, he got engaged, but I think I would’ve gone out of my way more. But I guess it’s because I don’t know, my family was so, my extended family was so they enveloped this so much. I don’t know.

That’s right. Again, when your gas tank is filled, when you have your sister and your brother moving in and all this support system and you know.

My mother, my father, everybody.

Yeah, the loving family, I mean, so I guess in a way you can get away without getting a therapist because-

But I’d encourage people to get there. I hope they don’t read from this that you shouldn’t get a therapist. I think it’s really important. Mental illnesses should not be viewed as anything different than a physical illness.

Agreed.

And it should be just treated and they have real serious people and experts who can help.

Who do you think was the greatest president of all time? I have an answer for this, but I want to hear yours.

Well, I think Jefferson was one of my favorite presidents of all time. But also there were people who came along in periods. I think the fact that Roosevelt came when he did and the way he did and the way he stood up. I hope you come to my office one day. I sat in that Oval Office for eight years with Barack every morning at nine o’clock, and used to be, and before that I was chairman of foreign relations. I was in and out of that office a lot in my job. There was one portrait, a small portrait of George Washington over hanging over the mantle. So I didn’t realize at the time when we got elected that the outgoing president of inauguration has to be out by, I think 10 o’clock. And the new guy or woman can’t come in until I think four. There’s a space there so he can decide what desk you want, what drug, etc.

(41:32)
So my brother Jimmy has better taste than I do, so I asked Jimmy, “Would you do my office?” And he had Jon Meacham, the president’s historian, and he asked help from. And I come walking in and I look and there’s this big portrait of Franklin Roosevelt and I admire Roosevelt. And I looked, I said, “Jimmy, why Roosevelt?” And Meacham spoke up and said, “Because no president has inherited a world of more disarray than him, than you.” And I said, “That’s wonderful.” And then I looked over, there’s four more portraits, the one, a small one of Washington and then one of Abraham Lincoln. And I said, “Why Lincoln?” He said, “Because the nation’s never been as divided since then.” I said, “I’m getting the hell out of here.”

You’re not kidding. Keep talking.

I mean, so there’s a lot of people, a lot of presidents that I admire the hell out of. And I think Barack was hell of a president.

I did too. Was it hard for you? I mean, you had spent so many years on the Senate, you were so prepared to be president yourself. Was it hard to be vice president? I would think in some ways you’d say to yourself, “Gee, I liked it better in the Senate. At least I had more to do.”

Well, I’ll tell you a true story. Barack became the de facto candidate, in I guess it was in the middle of August, and I’m riding home on the train as usual, and I get a phone call, it’s Barack. He said, “I want to do a background check on you.” I said, “Barack, I don’t want to be vice president. I can help you much more as a senior senator. I was fairly successful there.” And he said, “Well, there’s only two of you.” I think that’s what he said. And I said, “Barack.” He said, “Well, there’s only you.” And I said, “Barack, I don’t want to be vice president. I can help you better.”

(43:20)
So I go home. He said, “Do me a favor, when you get home tonight,” and he knew my family. “Talk to your family. Get back to me in 24, maximum 48 hours.” I said, “Okay, Barack.” So I called and said, “Let’s get a family meeting in the back porch.” We get a family meeting and not to my surprise, Jill says, “You ought to do it.” I said, “What?” She said, “Otherwise, you’ll be asked to be Secretary of State and you’ll be away all the time.”

Yeah

Then my son Beau gave a reason why I should do it and Hunter and everybody. My mom was living with the time because we just lost my dad. And I looked at my mom and I said, “Honey, you haven’t said anything.” She said, “Joey, let me, remember.” True stories here. She said, “Remember when there were desegregating Linfield, the neighborhood, it was 70 homes built, Suburbia. And I told you, and there was a Black family moving in and there was, people were down there protesting. I told you not to go down there. And you went down, remember that? And you got arrested, be standing on the porch with a Black family and they brought you back the police.”

(44:25)
And I said, “Yeah, mom, I remember that.” And she said, then she looks at me. She said, ” And Joey, remember you had that job was a lifeguard in that country club setting, but you wanted to be the only white guy working in the bucket on the east side in the Black neighborhood?” I said, “Yeah, I remember that.” She said, “Well, let me get this straight. When I called you and asked you about Barack when he defeated you back in the spring, you said he was bright, he was honest. He was really a capable guy.” I said, “Yeah, mom, what’s your point?” She said, “Joey, the first Black man in history is a chance to be president and you told him no.”

Right.

That’s something.

Yeah. That is crazy too. By the way, I forgot to bring that up. I was going to bring that up too, about not only were you a star football player, but you were a lifeguard. I mean, and you were the only white guy who was lifeguarding in this Black community, right? I mean, you were the one guy.

I was, yeah. But I learned so much. I learned so much. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to go down. A lot of athletes had those jobs. That’s how you got the jobs.

I see.

There were three big swimming pools in the city, and this was in the Projects. And so what I realized, I mean, for example, I remember a guy named Jamie Rolls who was a great ballplayer, and he went to [inaudible 00:45:44] High School. And he came up to me one day, he said, “Do you have any Jerrycans?” You know those big cans?

Yeah, big Jerry jug.

And I said, “What do you need a Jerrycan for?” He said, “I need one.” I said, “What?” “I’m going see my mother, my grandmother.” “So what do you…” He said, “Joe, you know I can’t stop at any gas stations between here and North Carolina.”

He used it as a bathroom. Yeah.

No, he used it-

He took it to urinate.

No, beyond that, he brought the extra gas in it.

I thought he was… He can’t go to a gas station.

Yeah, you couldn’t back then. This was 1965, I guess.

Oh, I thought he wasn’t allowed. I thought he wasn’t even allowed to use the bathroom. That’s where my mind went, but you’re right.

Well, he was talking about-

He couldn’t get gas.

… he couldn’t get gas.

Can you imagine? What a world, what a world.

I learned a lot and I made a lot of friends.

Did you ever save anyone’s life when you were a lifeguard? Was anyone ever drowning?

Yeah.

You did?

Yeah. Well, half a dozen times. Usually younger kids.

You do the thing with the whistle and then jump in in the bathing suit?

Yeah, you got it.

No kidding.

Yeah, it was a big pool. There were seven lifeguard stands.

Wow. See, that would define my, I would brag about that everywhere I went.

Well, by the way, I did it up in Lake Ontario too when I was in law school. But look, one of the things that-

Well, you saved a dude’s life when you were in law school, you were still doing the lifeguard thing?

Yeah. Lifeguards, I mean, people just need help sometimes. I mean, it’s not like it’s so heroic.

Yeah, it’s a big deal. We should play that up in the movie of your life.

Oh, by the way, it got played up because when I ran the first time, they said it was true. I was running for, it’s called a County Council.

County Council. Yeah.

After I got law school, we didn’t have any money to buy a home or anything. So we had this real estate agent. We were looking for rentals. Her husband, she had managed this pool called the Country Swimming Club, which was a private swimming club in Suburban in a nice part of town that a number of judges put together because when they’d be up in the summer working in Wilmington, they had a place to go. And it was a very modest thing, a nice pool, and had a little bath house and the rest, and it had a little gate house on it. And so she worked out that I could live in that gate house for free if I’d managed the pool. I was practicing law, but as long as I hired everybody, kept it going. And so when they ran against me, they said, “Why the hell would you vote for Biden? All he’s ever been in his whole life as a lifeguard.”

They threw it in your face.

Well, it was a good, I don’t blame him.

Yeah. No, it’s crazy.

It was a good.

It is. What a crazy career you’ve had, I mean.

Well, it’s not like there’re any straight line to it. It’s not like I started off to do that. It’s like the… Anyway.

Yeah, that’s pretty amazing. So now let me get back to some romance if you don’t mind.

Sure. Okay.

So I don’t know how long it takes you before you start dating, but when you lost your wife, you were devastated.

About five years.

Five years.

Well, I had gone out other times, but I basically gave up going out because it got complicated. And I guess Jill and I went out two and a half, three years after I’d lost.

Did you feel like you were betraying your first wife?

No. No. It wasn’t that. I just didn’t feel, it became, it was like a celebrity issue. I go out and Biden’s gone, and when I did go out, we’d make sure the press didn’t know I was going out. For example, the first time Jill and I went out, we went to Philadelphia to see a movie. And I didn’t like the movie, The Man and a Woman. It was a-

Oh, I remember that movie, Man and a Woman.

Went up to Philly because no one in Philly you couldn’t go to locally. So anyway, it was, but I just got really, really lucky and Jill is incredible.

It’s like sort of what happened with your first wife, when you know you know, you were like, “I think I’m going to marry this.” Your brother found a picture of her, or he showed you a picture?

The Pond Company did a lot of business in Washington and the Wilmington Airport, they convinced an airline to come and fly once a day back and forth commercially. So I went down and they had this big life-size banner in there of advertising that there… And the woman in the banner standing there was Jill. And turns out she had a friend in Delaware who asked her if he could take a picture of her and he. And I remember going home and saying, “I saw a beautiful woman.” Isn’t that weird?

Yeah.

And it turns out the blind date was with that woman.

How strange is that?

It’s fate.

It’s fate. And you again pretty much knew right away.

I did. I really did.

But here’s something I heard about your relationship with your wife that blew me away. So you meet her, you go out with her, you find yourself, I want her to be my girlfriend, I want her to be exclusive with me. And you tell her this and she says, “Well, I have a date with another guy.”

That’s right.

It’s the best. She goes, “I have a date with another guy. And I would feel dishonest not going out with him.” And that’s got to be the worst feeling in the world when you’re falling in love with someone and they’re going out on a date with another guy.

Actually, it was the second time, it was within three days of taking her out the first time.

She said, “No, I can’t skip this date that I have with this guy.”

Well, she did.

She did? Good for you. But it was pretty much love at first sight again, right? I mean.

Well, for me it really was. I mean, I just liked her. We have the same family values. I got to meet her family. Her dad was a wonderful guy. She has four. I tell every man, you should marry into a family with five or more sisters, and she’s the oldest of five because one of them will always love you, not the same one. One of them will always stick up for you.

That’s good.

But I got to meet them. I got to meet her grandparents. They were originally from South Jersey, Hamilton, New Jersey. Her dad ended up being the president of a small Savings and Loan in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. But they were just wonderful people.

Why did you have to propose so many times? What was that all about?

Well, I don’t know. I mean, I know why. It turns out I asked Jill five times to marry me. And so I was down trying to get to see Nelson Mandela with the Black Caucus in South Africa. And I came home and I got off the plane commercially in Philadelphia, drove straight to her apartment in Wilmington, knocked and she said, “Oh, Joe, come on in.” And I said, “No, no.” I said, “Look, you got my [inaudible 00:52:36].” I said, “I’m going to ask you one more time, and I promise just one more time.”

Because you had asked five times in two years?

I asked four times. Four times.

Four times. Okay.

One more time, I said, “You don’t have to tell me when, but if, will you marry me?” And she went like, “Okay.”

Great.

And my sister later ask her why she said yes and why she had been hesitant. She said, “She had fallen in love with the boys,” and she said, “I couldn’t imagine disappointing them. What happens if it didn’t work? How could we ever do that?”

Right. Oh man, let me, when I have rock stars in here, I talk about their greatest hits. And you’ve got, I’m going to go back to the Senate, a couple of things I’m going to mention. And the first thing is back in, I want to say ’94, Violence Against Women Act.

Yes.

This is something you were passionate about. You were one of the creators of this. And then the other day I’m watching the news and now they’re talking about the Supreme Court might even, that they might undo it, is that-

It’s the proudest thing I’ve ever done, it took me years to get it done.

But who would be against that?

Well, I got to be careful what I say about the court, but-

Why do you have to be careful?

Well, I think it’s important to-

It’s a joke. First of all, does it drive you crazy? This keeps me up at night, and I’m not exaggerating. It occurs to me every day that when Obama had his time to appoint a Supreme Court Justice, he was going to appoint Garland. These maniacs in the Senate said, “No way, not interested.” And now we’ve got a Supreme Court that’s nuts.

Well, it’s a really extremely conservative court. Maybe the most conservative court in modern history. And one of the things that when they struck down Roe v Wade saying that it was not constitutionally, federal constitution guaranteed, it was a state issue, states could make those judgments. I think they don’t, and one of the justices, Clarence Thomas said, “It’s not that women don’t have a choice. They can in fact change it.” In fact, at a state level like, well, we’ll see if they have any power. Well, they ain’t seen nothing yet. You’re going to see what will happen. If I’m elected president again in the second term, we’re going to be able to overrule them, not overrule, we’re going to be able to make Roe v Wade the law of the land again, because based on every state and the union being able to judge and get a majority vote in the Congress.

Do you think we can? Do you think that that could be done?

I think we can do that because I think there’s going to be a real lesson learned on the mega Republican side of the aisle because we’re going to see a whole hell of a lot of state referenda and they’re going to see, they’re going to want to restore it, and that’s going to be able to be done.

Can I tell you a fantasy I had? I don’t know if you’re going to debate your opponent.

I am somewhere. I don’t know when, I’m happy to debate him.

This is how I would handle it. Tell me if I’m nuts, we all know I am nuts, but tell me if this is accurate. I would stand there on stage with Trump and I would repeat over and over again. “Excuse me, please find me 11,000 votes so that I can win the election.” I would just repeat that over and over again. And then I’d say to the audience, “What are we debating? A man picked up the phone and wanted to say, fake the election. Give me 11,000 votes.” I don’t know how any American who loves this country, that’s the end of the debate. You don’t get to run if you’re going to fix an election.

Well, look, I think I said on January 6th when they were storming the capitol-

And a police officer died.

Yep. And he would say nothing. He was sitting in that office off that dining area, off the Oval Office for three hours and said nothing. I was supposed to make a speech on the economy that day. Instead, I made a speech from, I was in Delaware, on that issue because I was elected president, but I wasn’t sworn in yet. The idea that we were actually

It was derelict, it was almost criminal. He did nothing. He just sat there and watched what was happening, not a single… And now he wants to call… He calls them patriots and victims and says he’s going to pardon them all if he’s reelected.

How does some of the guys that you served in the Senate with… I’m talking about Republicans.

They don’t.

How are they going along with this?

Well, look, this is not your father’s Republican Party.

No, it isn’t.

I had a lot of Republicans, including the old segregationists that I served with, who at least you could talk to, at least on matters relating to… They were totally wrong on civil rights but the fact is that they understood there’s a need for a consensus to run this country. And I gave my word I’d never say their names, and I never will. In the last three years, I’ve had seven sitting Republican senators. Well, two are gone now. Seven sitting Republican senators call me to tell me, “Joe, I agree with you but I just can’t do it. He’ll get me.”

That’s what I was going to ask you, do you get these calls in secret where guys go, “Listen, I can’t say it publicly but I’m for you and I’m going to vote for you. I’m a Republican but screw it, I can’t vote for this guy because he’s talking about ending the democracy.”

Well, they’re not saying they’re going to vote for me. They’re saying, “I agree with you.”

And do you say to them, “You coward. Why don’t you say something publicly?” Where’s Jeb Bush? Where’s George Bush? Where are these guys? Why don’t they say, “Hey, I’m interested in saving the democracy for our grandchildren.”

Well, I don’t think the election is over yet on that score.

What do you think is going to happen? I can’t imagine you’re going to lose but…

Well, look, he’s promised if he doesn’t win, there’s going to be a bloodbath, things like that.

Can you imagine?

Here’s what bothers me most, we have a fundamentally different value set. For example, when he was in Paris, he wouldn’t go to that grave site and said, “They’re losers, these men and women who were killed in battle defending America. Losers and…” I’m glad I wasn’t there because I think I would’ve… My son is in one of those graves, he’s one of the graves back here, not there. And the idea that they’re losers and suckers, a president saying that…

And McCain is a loser… And he said, “McCain is a loser.”

Oh, McCain is a loser?

Can you imagine?

When John McCain got out of prison and was released, he came and worked for me. He was on the Senate Liaison officer, we traveled over 100,000 miles together. And he was like an assistant because he worked for the [inaudible 00:59:43]

He’s a fabulous man. I got to meet him before he died.

He was a straight-up guy, man. Tough as hell. And I find I can’t fathom a president of the United States of America saying that the folks who died defending this country were suckers and losers.

Forget him. I can’t fathom a guy walks into the voting booth, especially a military member or somebody, and would vote for someone who says military guys who die are losers and suckers. In other words, I’m not disappointed in him. I’m disappointed in my fellow Americans. And maybe you can’t say that because the thing I do like about you is you really… I love this about you. You’re able to embrace people who didn’t vote for you. And to me, that’s fundamentally good and I want that in a president.

Look, I think there’s an awful lot of military personnel who are not enamored with Trump and a fair number of them voted for me in 2020.

Good.

I don’t know the names but my point is… And I think part of… Look, you’re an expert on the subject I raised, I wonder what you think. How much do you think the modern media has altered the landscape?

The internet, these apps, it has now generated a hatred and viciousness where people who used to be in the minority have found each other and it’s a growing movement. And I am so afraid for our democracy right now that people would embrace anyone who says they’re going to get into office and…

Well, look, one of the things is that there are no editors anymore.

No, everyone says everything.

And I think there’s a lot of really… I’m doing the Gridiron dinner on Saturday, and one of the things, the serious thing I’m going to say to Gridiron dinner is that paraphrasing Jefferson. He said, “The choice between what we have and a free press, I’d pick a free press.”

Damn right.

Well, guess what? The free press is not speaking up as much as it used to.

No.

And I’m not sure, I haven’t figured it out yet but I think it’s coming around. I’m not blaming the press. I’m just saying that I think some of them are worried about attacking him, worried about taking him on.

Yeah, everybody is scared. I don’t know why they’re so scared. I don’t get it. And by the way, did you ever think you’d live in an America where Republicans are for Putin?

No.

I bang my head against the wall. Thank God you got the whole… The Ukraine aid. Who the hell?

I spent a lot of time in Ukraine and I’ll tell you what, have we not gotten that done I think you might see the beginning… Kissinger before he died, 10 days before he died, got a message saying that said, “Not since Napoleon has Europe not looked over their shoulder at Russia with dread until now.” You’ve strengthened NATO, you’ve expanded it, you’ve moved it.

I can’t thank you enough for that.

Well, it’s not just me. But the point is, I’ve worked really hard, spent hours and hours and hours doing this. And the idea that had we not gotten this done, I think you would’ve seen a beginning of disintegration of NATO.

I know. Did you ever think you’d see that in your lifetime?

No.

No.

Except that he says, he, Trump, thinks we should not have NATO. He doesn’t support NATO. And he thinks they’re not doing… Inviting Putin, inviting Putin to invade Ukraine or any other NATO partner because they’re not putting enough money up.

Can you believe there are two people who believe that? You think about all the men who died in World War II fighting Nazis and keeping this democracy alive, and now it’s crazy. Speaking about service and again, because I was asking you about loss, the loss of your son was devastating. But you know what strikes me? Here, you were a US senator, and you know this song by Creedence Clearwater I’m not a Fortunate Son. Here’s a son of a senator joins the military and was in Iraq.

Well, look, my son Bo should be sitting here instead of me, he’s more capable than I am and he was the attorney general of the state of Delaware. And one day I came home… I don’t come home all the time. He came over to the house, he was living in Delaware. And he said, “Dad, what are you doing on Friday?” I said, “What do you need?” He said, “I need you to pin my bars on me.” I said, “Pin your bars on you? What the hell are you talking about?” He said, “I joined the National Guard.” And facetiously said, “Somebody’s got to do this anyway.” What happened after that was…

Were you in shock that he joined the National Guard?

No, I wasn’t in shock. It didn’t surprise me, it’s just I wouldn’t encourage him to do it, he was a sitting attorney general. He had to give up the attorney general’s job because you either have to work for the president or for the state.

He was attorney general at that point?

He was attorney general. Now, he could join the National Guard and be accountable to the governor. But when the guard unit got sent overseas, he got an exception to be able to give up [inaudible 01:05:36] he wasn’t allowed to do any of the attorney general job, turned it back over to a Republican who had been there before and went for a year. The problem was he lived next to one of those burn pits. He came back with a Bronze Star, he came back with a [inaudible 01:05:51] Service Medal, but also came back with stage four glioblastoma. The brain injuries out of Iraq are extreme like they were the people in 9/11, all those firefighters because of the toxic fumes.

You are convinced that the reason he got brain cancer is because…

Oh, I know it. It’s been determined, yeah. And a lot of them did, a lot of them is because of the toxic… Just like we’re convinced what happened to all those firefighters. And before that, as an assistant US attorney in Philadelphia, he had volunteered to go to Kosovo to help them set up a criminal justice system. They awarded him, he received a medal from Kosovo, both parties.

What a kid. What a kid. How did you know that he had… Did he call you and say, “Dad, I’ve gotten a horrible diagnosis.”

Yeah, I learned when he learned, he let us know. But he had come home and it just kept getting worse and that’s when he realized they did the analysis. And then he was in Walter Reed for a long time but… I wrote a book called Promise Me, Dad. He knew his time was up and one night we were having a dinner at our home before he was incapacitated, hospitalized. And he said, “Dad, can we talk?” And I said, “Sure.” And he said, “Look at me, dad. Promise me, dad. Promise me, dad, that you’ll not leave public life. I know when I go, you’ll want to quit. You’ll want to quit.” And he looked at me, he said, “Dad, give me your word as a Biden. Give me your word, look at me.” I’m serious, I give my word on the health of my family. And he said, “Promise me, dad, you won’t step back.” And I made the promise, that’s what I ended up writing the book about. Not to sell the book but so my great-grandchildren and great-great can knew who he was.

Wow.

Before he passed away… [inaudible 01:08:04] The last thing he said before he passed away, literally we were in the hospital a night with him lying in bed with him, he looked at me and he said, “I’m not scared, dad. It’s okay. I’m not scared. It’s okay.” He was gone within… Anyway.

Wow. You’ve had to deal with a lot of loss.

Well, there’s a lot of heroes out there that dealt with what I’ve dealt with and more without the family I had, without support. I’m not joking.

No, I know you’re not.

There are thousands of heroes come up every day put one foot in front of the other, and they got nobody. They got nobody to help them with that child that survived or whatever it was, and they’re incredible.

Now, I understand why you’ve said to your family, “I’m the President of the United States.” But if any of your grandchildren or your children have to get in touch with you, you said, “I’ll leave any meeting and I will answer the phone.”

That’s true. And the other thing, I have a rule and I mean this sincerely, when I ran for re-election after the accident, I realized that I had a million bosses being from… Starting from small but only a million people.

Right.

When they’re coming up, if I had to choose between going to a parent-teachers meeting and a vote, it wouldn’t matter, I’d went to the parent-teacher, I say so. And so during one of the Supreme Court hearings, a really bright guy, I don’t want to embarrass him and mention his name, was having trouble, family trouble. I learned about it four days before the hearing began and I told him to go home and he said no. I said, “I’m going to fire you if you don’t go. Go home and take care of your family.” And so I have a rule, everybody knows in my office, if you have any problem relating to family, you don’t have to tell me what it is, just look at me in the eye and say, “I can’t be here. I got to take care of things.”

I want to thank you for doing this today. I want to thank you for your compassion. The reason I am so excited to talk to you is because I wanted to understand the tragedy in your life and how you dealt with it. And you’re the kind of leader I love, because we’re lucky to have you in the Oval Office and serving as the father of the country. Because if you’re a good father to your family, which you are, I know you’d be a good father to the country. And I want to thank you for providing a calming influence, an organized administration post-COVID, getting that vaccine out. I remember what the world was like at that point, getting NATO, getting us to feel comfortable standing up to Putin. I could read your greatest hits but I’m being given the high sign.

(01:11:01)
But the incredible large growth in the jobs, unemployment rate down, I don’t know what people are looking for in a president or maybe it’s that people don’t feel like they’re getting enough or something. I don’t know what it is. But I’ll give you your greatest hits, the lowest uninsured rate in history, 4 out of 5 Americans are covered for less than $10 a month, knocking off a few ISIS leaders, cutting the emissions in half, you’ve always been an environmentalist. Geez, even the marijuana reform laws, enough sitting there and fighting that battle. Respect for Marriage Act. What the hell is with people with this gay stuff? Who cares if someone is gay? How is it affecting anybody? People in love, it’s good. Love is good.

My dad said we saw two men kissing one another in Rodney Square when I was going in to get a license. And I looked at him and he said, “Joey, it’s simple. They love each other.”

That’s it. That’s how I look at it. Listen, this has been a thrill. You know I put a suit on for you. And here’s the depressing thing, this is from my daughter’s wedding a year ago last summer, and now I don’t fit into it. My belly is hanging over my belt.

Well, I’ll tell you what.

What do I do?

Do you know who deserves credit? The American people are relentless, the American people are stepping up. Who would they vote for? They just never give up. We’re the most unique country in the world, we really are.

We are but I don’t want to lose it.

We’re not going to lose it, God willing.

Thank you for doing this.

Well, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Mr. President. Look at me sitting with the president.

Look at me sitting with Howard Stern.

Wow. You can tell people this is the most important event in your lifetime.

I’ll tell them that [inaudible 01:12:54]

President Joe Biden, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Howard. Appreciate it.