Social media posts circulated during Joe Biden's 2020 presidential run declared that Biden had misrepresented the accident as being the fault of a drunken driver, and even that Biden had deliberately lied about it: For the ensuing 36 years of his Senate career, Biden famously commuted via Amtrak to Washington, D.C., from the family home in Wilmington, Delaware, daily in order to be home for his sons Beau and Hunter, who had been severely injured but survived the crash that killed their mother and sister.Īs in any such tragedy, one of the paramount questions is: what caused the fatal accident? Neilia Biden's station wagon was broadsided by a tractor-trailer truck at an intersection, but who - or what - was the underlying cause of the accident? Six weeks later, however, before he had assumed office, Biden's life took the most tragic of turns when his wife Neilia and their 1-year-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in an automobile accident. The seminal moment in the career of Joe Biden occurred in November 1972 when, as a 29-year-old lawyer whose only previous political experience was as a member of the New Castle County Council in Delaware, he pulled off an astounding upset victory over a Republican incumbent and won election to the U.S. In 1977, he married Jill Biden.No definitive evidence exists to prove or rule out whether the other driver had been drinking, and belief that drinking had contributed to the crash was reportedly prevalent among the local community and not something Biden simply made up on his own. In the weeks after being elected to the Senate in 1972, tragedy struck the Biden family after a car accident killed his first wife, Neilia and their 1-year-old daughter, Naomi, and severely injured his sons, Beau and Hunter. He was one of the youngest people elected to a seat in the upper chamber. A young Biden overcame the affliction through public speaking.ĭuring his college years at the University of Delaware, Biden played football.īiden was first sent to Washington in 1972 when the people of Delaware elected him to the U.S. In the wake of protests across the country over racial inequality last summer, Biden has not joined the calls to defund police departments, but advocates for providing an additional $300 million in funding for community-based policing, as well as pairing police with mental health experts to be able to better address community needs, while also advocating for a national use-of-force standard.Īs a child and teenager, he struggled with a stutter. Biden plans to mandate masks on federal property for the first 100 days of his administration and faces the deep challenge of vaccinating the U.S. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images, FILEīiden has also put forth several plans to address the coronavirus pandemic, pledging to follow the science and heed the advice of experts. His second presidential run during the 2008 primary ended after the Iowa Caucuses, where Biden received less than 1% of the vote.īiden has expanded his plan for higher education and proposes offering free college tuition for public universities, historically black colleges and universities, and minority-serving institutions to families making less than $125,000, along with his previous pledge to make community college tuition free. He admitted to that in 1987, called it a "mistake" and said that there wasn't "malevolent" intent, according to reports at the time. Biden also faced questions of plagiarism in law school after a paper he wrote did not include proper citation for some of the text. In that case, Biden quoted British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock without attribution. Biden has also led the charge on the sweeping, bipartisan 1994 crime bill - a bill Biden referred to as the "Biden Crime Bill" during his 2008 presidential campaign - which critics say had a disproportionate impact on minority communities, particularly due to mass incarceration.īiden undertook three presidential runs during his nearly 50 years in public life, with the first, in 1987, ending before any primary voting took place due to a plagiarism scandal.
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