Joe Biden facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Joe Biden
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Official portrait, 2021
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| 46th President of the United States | |
| Assumed office January 20, 2021 |
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| Vice President | Kamala Harris |
| Preceded by | Donald Trump |
| 47th Vice President of the United States | |
| In office January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2017 |
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| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Dick Cheney |
| Succeeded by | Mike Pence |
| United States Senator from Delaware |
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| In office January 3, 1973 – January 15, 2009 |
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| Preceded by | J. Caleb Boggs |
| Succeeded by | Ted Kaufman |
| Member of the New Castle County Council from the 4th district |
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| In office January 5, 1971 – January 3, 1973 |
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| Preceded by | Lawrence T. Messick |
| Succeeded by | Francis R. Swift |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.
November 20, 1942 Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic (since 1969) |
| Other political affiliations |
Independent (before 1969) |
| Spouses | |
| Children | |
| Relatives | Biden family |
| Residence | White House |
| Education |
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| Occupation |
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| Awards | Full list |
| Signature |  |
| Website | |
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. ( BY-dən; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. Biden was also the 47th vice president of the United States from 2009 through 2017 during the Barack Obama presidency. He is a member of the Democratic Party and is from Wilmington, Delaware.
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Early life
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942 at St. Mary's Keller Memorial Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania to a family of Irish Catholics. His father, Joe Sr., was a businessman. When he was young, his family moved to Wilmington, Delaware. He also began to stutter at an early age. In high school, Biden played football and baseball, but he was not a very good student. Biden attended college at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University. He did not have to fight in the Vietnam War because he was going to college and had asthma as a child.
In the Senate
For many years, Biden was a U.S. Senator from Delaware. Biden was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 when he was 29 years old. His election was somewhat of a surprise. The other candidate, J. Caleb Boggs, had more experience and more money to spend on his campaign. He is one of the youngest people to become a U.S. Senator, because he was only two months older than the minimum age, 30, required to be one. (While he was 29 during the election, he turned 30 before he became a senator.)
Biden was re-elected to the Senate six times. He became a prominent defender of Israel as a senator, and said that if there was no country like Israel the U.S. would have to make one. Later in his time in the Senate, Biden served as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Foreign Relations committee deals with American issues in other countries. When Biden was chair, the committee dealt with the 1991 Gulf War, the 2003 War in Iraq, and several treaties. The Judiciary Committee dealt with the choice of Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and others for the Supreme Court (SCOTUS). Biden thought that Thomas and Bork should not be on the Court. Though U.S. senators work in Washington, DC, Biden took the train home to Delaware every night.
Before becoming vice president, Biden was ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he said was because he was young when elected to the Senate. In November 2009, Biden's net worth was $27,012.
Running for President and Vice President
Biden ran for president three times, in 1988, 2008 and 2020. The first time he was viewed as a good choice early on, but quit after it was discovered he gave a speech that was copied from Neil Kinnock, a British politician.
Biden tried again to get the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 presidential election. He ran mostly on foreign issues, especially getting U.S. troops out of Iraq. Many thought of him as a good choice for Secretary of State. He stopped his campaign on January 3, 2008 after he did not get many votes in the Iowa caucus. However, he later became Barack Obama's pick for vice president due to what he knew about Iraq and because the working class liked him.
When Biden was running for president, he criticized Obama, talking about his lack of experience, but later he supported Obama to become president. His opponent as vice president was Sarah Palin, who had less experience but was seen as more interesting by the media. Before the election, there were debates between the different candidates running for president or vice president. In the debate between Biden and Palin, many people believed that he knew more about running America than Palin did. When Obama was elected president on November 4, 2008, Biden was elected vice president.
As Vice President
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Biden became vice president on January 20, 2009, and is the first person from Delaware and first Roman Catholic to be vice president. When Biden became vice president, he said he would do things differently from Dick Cheney, who had been vice president before him. Biden has said that his vice-presidency will not be like any other.
Biden's main role was as an advisor to Obama, mostly on issues of foreign policy and the economy. Obama has asked for Biden's input on most of his major decisions, such as who to put in his Cabinet and how to fight the War in Afghanistan. Obama has put him in charge of groups to deal with the problems of the working class, as well as to watch the money in his stimulus bill. Biden had also traveled to the Middle East several times on behalf of Obama and the U.S. while Vice President. In 2011, Biden led talks on the budget and the debt. On November 6, 2012, Biden was re-elected for a second term as vice president along with President Barack Obama.
In August 2015, Biden said that he was looking for a possible chance of running for president again in the 2016 U.S. election. Biden formed a PAC for his possible run. On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and President Obama by his side, Biden announced his decision not to enter the race for the Democratic nomination for the presidency for the 2016 election.
Biden never had to break a tie vote in the United States Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president not to do this.
After winning the election, Biden served the Vice Presidency until January 20, 2017.
2020 presidential election
During a tour of the U.S. Senate with reporters before leaving office on December 5, 2016, Biden said that a presidential bid was possible in the 2020 presidential election, after leaving office as vice president. While on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on December 7, he stated "never say never" about running for president in 2020, while also admitting he did not see a scenario in which he would run for office again. On January 13, 2017, exactly one week before Donald Trump took office. he said he would not run. However, four days later, on January 17, he took the statement back, saying "I'll run if I can walk."
Biden was mentioned by many news outlets as a potential candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination. In March 2019, he said he may run.
He formally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019.
In April 2020, Biden became the only candidate in the primary making him the presumptive nominee for the nomination. At first, he lost the first three primary contests to Senator Bernie Sanders. After winning the South Carolina primary, he gained traction and won most of the Super Tuesday races.
Biden promised when elected he would protect Roe v. Wade decision, create a public option for health insurance, decriminalization of recreational ..., pass the Equality Act, create free community college, and a $1.7 trillion climate plan supporting the Green New Deal. He supports regulation instead of a complete ban on fracking.
In early 2020, Biden promised he would pick a woman as his running mate. He also promised that his first Supreme Court appointment would be a black woman. In August 2020, he picked California U.S. Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate.
On November 3, 2020, FiveThirtyEight's statistical model projected that Biden had a 89% chance to defeat Donald Trump. He defeated Trump in the general election after officially being projected as the winner on November 7, 2020. With more than 81 million votes, Biden received the most votes ever cast for a candidate in a U.S. presidential election. However Trump did not call Biden the winner, refused to say he lost and tried to overturn the election results.
President of the United States
Biden was elected the 46th President of the United States in November 2020, defeating the incumbent Donald Trump, the first sitting president to lose re-election since George H. W. Bush in 1992.
He became the second non-incumbent vice president to be elected president, and the first Democrat to do so.
First 100 days
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Biden was inaugurated shortly before noon on January 20, 2021 as the 46th president of the United States.
His first actions as president were rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, rejoining the World Health Organization, a 100-day mandatory face mask requirements on federal property and acts to stop hunger in the United States. His presidency has been focused around his Build Back Better Plan agenda.
On February 4, 2021, he announced that the United States will stop giving weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for use in the Yemeni Civil War.
On March 11, 2021, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden tried to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, but removed it from the stimulus package after criticism from both parties.
In March 2021, when there was an increase in migrants coming to the United States from Mexico, Biden told migrants: "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children and told the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help take care of children separated at the border.
On March 23, 2021, all of his cabinet members were confirmed by the United States Senate.
Rest of 2021
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On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the US would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.
On April 28, 2021, Biden addressed the United States Congress in his State of the Union Address. Presiding over this joint session was the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris as President of the Senate ― the first time two women preside over an address to Congress.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986.
By early July 2021, most of the American troops in Afghanistan were leaving or had left. On August 15, during an offensive by the Taliban, the Afghan government collapsed. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to help the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He has been criticized for the way he handled the withdrawal. He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves", since the "Afghan military collapsed [against the Taliban], sometimes without trying to fight".
In August 2021, the Biden administration pushed for an infrastructure bill that can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of the United States by 45% by 2030. He would also support lowering taxes for people who invest in renewable energy and electric vehicles and would add a fee on methane emissions. The Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
2022
In the start of 2022, Biden's approval ratings were low. He started speaking more in public. Early in the year, Biden supported ending the U.S. Senate filibuster rule to pass a voting rights act.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said he would retire from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement gave Biden his first chance to nominate a justice to the Supreme Court. Biden had promised to nominate the court's first black female justice. On February 25, Biden nominated D.C. Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Breyer. She was confirmed on April 7th.
During 2022, President Biden had overseen a rise in gasoline prices and product goods because of rising inflation, with some blaming Biden's American Rescue Plan as a reason. In May 2022, there was a nationwide shortage of infant formula. During this time, there was an increase of use of "I Did That!" stickers, which showed Biden pointing to that phrase, as a form to criticize Biden for high gas prices.
2023
Discovery of classified documents
On November 2, 2022, while packing files at the Penn Biden Center, Biden's attorneys found classified documents dating to his vice presidency in a "locked closet". According to the White House, the documents were reported that day to the U.S. National Archives, which recovered the documents the next day. On December 20, a second batch of classified documents was discovered in the garage of Biden's Wilmington, Delaware residence. In January 2023, these findings were made public, and on January 12, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert K. Hur as special counsel to investigate "possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records". On January 20, after a 13-hour consensual search by FBI investigators, six more items with classified markings were recovered from Biden's Wilmington residence.
Impeachment inquiry
On September 12, 2023, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy initiated a formal impeachment inquiry against Biden, saying that recent House investigations "paint a picture of corruption" by him and his family. Congressional investigations, most notably by the House Oversight committee, have discovered no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden.
2024 United States presidential election
On April 25, 2023, President Biden announced his intention to run for a second term as President of the United States in the 2024 Elections.
Personal life
While in college, he married his first wife, Nelia Hunter. They had three children: two sons (Beau and Robert) and a daughter (Naomi). After college, he became a lawyer and served on a County Council, a group of people who run a county. In 1972, Biden's family got into a car accident. Nelia and Naomi were killed, and Beau and Robert were hurt very badly. Both survived the accident. Beau was the Attorney General in Delaware until January 2015 and served as a soldier in Iraq. Beau died from brain cancer on May 30, 2015 in Bethesda, Maryland at the age of 46. Biden thought of resigning as vice president because of his son's death.
Biden married his second wife, Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden, in 1977. She is a teacher and the former Second Lady of the United States. In 1981, they had a daughter, Ashley, who is now a social worker. In 1988, Biden suffered from bleeding in his brain and needed brain surgery twice.
Biden lives just outside of Wilmington, Delaware and often goes there on the weekends since becoming president. By November 2020[update], the Bidens were worth $9 million, mainly because of Biden's book sales and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
Political positions
Biden is a moderate Democrat whose positions are deeply influenced by Catholic social teaching.
Biden has proposed partially reversing the corporate tax cuts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, saying that doing so would not hurt businesses' ability to hire.
He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Biden is a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He has promoted a plan to expand and build upon it, paid for by revenue gained from reversing some Trump administration tax cuts. Biden's plan aims to expand health insurance coverage to 97% of Americans, including by creating a public health insurance option.
Biden believes action must be taken on global warming. As a senator, he co-sponsored the Boxer–Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, the most stringent climate bill in the United States Senate. Biden opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He wants to achieve a carbon-free power sector in the U.S. by 2035 and stop emissions completely by 2050. His program includes reentering the Paris Agreement, nature conservation, and green building. Biden supports environmental justice, including climate justice, and has taken steps to implement it. A major step is increasing energy efficiency, water efficiency and resilience to climate disasters in low-income houses. This should help mitigate climate change, reduce costs for households, and improve health and safety.
Biden has said the U.S. needs to "get tough" on China, calling it the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges to the United States' "prosperity, security, and democratic values".
Biden has said he is against regime change, but for providing non-military support to opposition movements.
Awards and honors
Biden has received honorary degrees from the University of Scranton (1976), Saint Joseph's University (1981), Widener University School of Law (2000), Emerson College (2003), his alma mater the University of Delaware (2004), Suffolk University Law School (2005), and his other alma mater Syracuse University (2009).
Biden got the Chancellor Medal from his alma mater, Syracuse University, in 1980. In 2005, he got the George Arents Pioneer Medal—Syracuse's highest alumni award—"for excellence in public affairs."
In 2008, Biden got the Best of Congress Award, for "improving the American quality of life through family-friendly work policies," from Working Mother magazine. Also in 2008, Biden shared with fellow Senator Richard Lugar the Hilal-i-Pakistan award from the Government of Pakistan, "in recognition of their consistent support for Pakistan." In 2009, Biden got The Golden Medal of Freedom award from Kosovo, that region's highest award, for his vocal support for their independence in the late 1990s.
Biden is an member of the Delaware Volunteer Firemen's Association Hall of Fame.
Interesting facts about Joe Biden
- At 78, Biden is the oldest person to become president.
- He had served in the Senate longer than any other President or Vice President.
- He is the first president from the state of Delaware.
- Biden is the second Catholic president to hold the office after John F. Kennedy.
- In his first month as president, Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- Biden is the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to have all of his original Cabinet secretary nominees confirmed to their posts.
- Biden has five honorary doctorates. He has also earned the "Best of Congress Award".
- In 2017, during his final days as president, Barack Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction.
- In 2020, Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris were named Time Person of the Year.
Related pages
See also
In Spanish: Joe Biden para niños
