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>> narrator: behind president biden's fateful decision... >> he thought he'd be able to power through, but many leaders within the party thought differently. >> it is a stunning and historic development... >> narrator: through years of interviews... >> the culmination of a half century in public life, the very last decision he would make, would be to surrender. of course, that's painful. >> narrator: now on frontline, biden's decision. >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. additional support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism... park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues... the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.

more at at macfound.org. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler, and additional support from koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. ♪ ♪ >> it's been this roller coaster of days. the president of the united states, who's under enormous pressure to drop his bid for a second term, ends up being sick and has to isolate. he has covid. he disembarks from the plane. he takes a couple of steps and then he just stops, inexplicably, for no reason, it seems like.

and he looks over to the right, where, there's nobody there. and he just looks halting, unsteady, uncertain. and you saw the lowest point, in some ways, of his presidency. >> (shouting over jet hissing): any response to chuck schumer? >> (inaudible) (reporters shouting questions) >> he disappears into the presidential limousine, and that's the last time anybody sees joe biden for six days. >> he was self-isolating for health reasons, but politically, he was incredibly isolated because there were mounting calls for him to drop out of the re. people were wondering, is this the end of joe biden's political career?

people were looking at that imagery. they were looking at the days ahead, the weekend that was coming up, as a pivotal moment in determining whether or not biden would be able to remain as the leader of the democratic ticket. >> narrator: sick and on the political ropes, president joe biden faced a critical decision. >> he was getting the message from lawmakers on capitol hill who were saying, "if you don't make a decision this weekend, "we are going to come out en masse and say that we have lost confidence in you." (sirens blaring) >> narrator: it would be one of the toughest of his life. >> there was no more room for error. he had to decide whether or not he was going to step down as a candidate. was there one more comeback there for him to mount?

>> narrator: for joe biden, it was a pivotal moment in a lifetime marked by ambition, tragedy, and determination. >> you can't understand joe biden without understanding the insecurities at the core of his being. those insecurities that are born out of the stutter, born out of the bullying, they're the diesel fuel that keeps pushing him forward. >> an automobile accident killed the wife and baby daughter of biden of delaware. >> he went from being on top of the world to being a young widower, a father of two children, and a man with a broken heart. >> hello, everybody. >> when he was accused of plagiarism, we felt that his character was being attacked, and it sort of took us back. (crowd cheering) >> when you get knocked down, you get back up! rowd cheers and applauds) >> you cannot understand joe biden

without understanding everything that came before, which is an entire lifime spent proving to people that he can do the things that they believe he cannot. ♪ ♪ (train bell clanging) >> narrator: the roots of joe biden's enduring willpower trace back to a bygone era. >> this is the delaware story. it is an outstanding example of what free people in a free country can accomplish. >> when he talks about the world that he wants to see for the country, when he talks about the dignity of work, when he talks about middle-class communities, he's really going back to something that had existed in his youth. >> the fathers and mothers in our hometown are just plain,

nice-living folks, the kind you read about in storybooks. you know, main street folks who say, "hello, nice morning." we've built it with civic pride and remain proud of its dignity and friendly, tolerable characters. ♪ ♪ >> the family moved to wilmington when biden was about ten. and the neighborhood was, you know, this is, um, irish catholic, pretty much, um, working class. ♪ ♪ >> my brother joe is the eldest of all of us. you know, we were normal kids. ♪ ♪ we were, you know, we raised hell, we got into trouble, but once we walked outside our home, we were bidens,

and we, we had to stick together, and loyalty was tantamount-- we took care of each other. >> they have a very strong sense of a clannish identity. "we bidens" is an idea-- you'll hear val, his sister, use that term, and joe biden uses that term. >> mom and dad told us that the most important thing in life was family. my father was not a man of many words. my mother was the one who was the talker in the family. but when he spoke to us, i mean, we all perked up. my dad, my dad didn't have to say twice to us what he was thinking, or what he wanted us to do. mom stayed at home, dad, uh, sold cars. >> joe biden's self-presentation is that he is a man

who comes out of the working class, full stop. but actually, the real story is richer. it's much more complicated and interesting, which is, of course, that his father had money at one point. his father grew up with money. >> my dad grew up well-polished by gentlemanly pursuits. he would ride to the hounds, drive fast, fly airplanes. he knew good clothes, fine horses, the newest dance steps. >> his father had little emblems of wealth left behind, like a polo mallet in the coat closet, and he had photographs of himself next to a private plane and things like that. and then they lost it all. and as a result, there was this sense of, almost like a phantom limb. >> he'd been knocked down hard as a young man. lost something he knew he cou never get back. >> when you listen to joe biden, the thing thatatters to him most is this sense of dignity, because he saw in his own father's life

and his own family the scars that are left wh you experience that kind of, that kind of precipitous drop in security, the precipitous drop in status that his family experienced. >> that value of each person's dignity, you can see that as a pretty straight line from mr. biden to joe. because he didn't think his own dignity had always been honored the way it should be. >> there's a story that joe biden writes about his father, and how they go to a christmas party, and the owner of the dealership at some point in that christmas party tosses out a bucket full of silver dollars onto the floor. his father was struck by all of these people scrounging around on the floor for these silver dollars. and so his father, in protest, quits immediately. >> it was supposed to be a kind of fun activity, but joe biden's father found it humiliating.

joe biden has always had a chip on his shoulder, and that's something that he inherited from his father. his father was always alert to the risk of being humiliated and that's something that for not having as much status he ior influence or powerher. or education or money as anybody else. >> "the world doesn't owe you a living, joey," he used to say. he had no time for self-pity. >> failure would happen in everyone's life, but giving up was unforgivable. my dad would say, "it's not how often you get knocked down, it's how quickly you get back up." >> "get up," that was his phrase, and it has echoed through my life. "you're lying in bed feeling sorry for yourself? get up. "bad grade? get up. "kids make fun of you because you stutter, b-b-b-biden? get up."

>> narrator: little joey had a stutter. >> hope to pea... teach p.e. well, my... (stuttering softly) ...father is very strict. ♪ ♪ >> when you're young, it... (stuttering softly) ...instantly... (stuttering softly) ...makes you a target for bullies. (stuttering softly) you're immediately not like any of the other kids. >> people feel free to make fun of stutterers. i mean, it was, uh, it was, it was difficult for my brother. >> he has talked frequently

about the shame he felt and the anger he felt when his peers made fun of him for his stutter and even his teachers, the nuns who taught him. >> he had an assignment he had to memorize, and he had to stand up and deliver it in the classroom. >> narrator: the words were in front of him: "sir walter raleigh was a gentleman." >> when joe read it, it went, "sir walter raleigh was a gentle man." "say that again?" mm. "sir walter raleigh was a gentle man." this went on three times. >> he said "gentle man" instead of "gentleman." >> the nun looked at him and said, "master b-b-b-biden,

do you need your classmates to tell you how to say that?" >> it s so embarrassing and so enraging that biden walked out of the room. he walked out of the school. he walked all the way home. (dog barking in distance) (car door closes, engine starts) >> narrator: joey's mom, jean, marched him back to the school to confront his teacher. >> mrs. biden was a very warm, gracious person, but then she had this steely backbone if challenged. like, if somebody did something to one of her kids, for example, i think the, the steel came out. >> the sister starts telling him how disrespectful joe is, and my mother, "stop." she said, "just tell me. did you make fun of my son?" "well, i..." "sister, did you make fun of my son?"

"well..." and my mother said, "well, i'll answer it for you. "you sure in hell did. "and if you ever, ever, ever do that again, "i'm going to come back and i'm going to knock "your bonnet right off your head. do, do we understand each other?" >> that was a very strong pugilistic strain in the family. there was a very strong sense that was imparted to the kids that you will never allow yourself to be diminished by somebody else. >> he was not going to let a bully define him. he just knew he stuttered and he was going to do something about it. >> narrator: his decision was emblematic for how he'd face the many challenges to come. >> biden... (stuttering softly) ...would stand in front of his bedroom mirror holding a flashlight to his face,

and he would recite yeats and emerson. he was determined to eventually be a person who could give... (stuttering softly) ...speeches. ♪ ♪ >> those insecurities that are born out of the bullying, born out of the stutter, born out of his father's fall from social mobility, those are the things that keep propelling him, they're the diesel fuel that keeps pushing him forward. >> at a pretty young age, joe biden awakened to the power of his own will; the will to recite these poems in front of the mirror, to beat the stutter, which seemed like this assignment from god, you know, this, this sense that he had been given this body that was frail.

and he got through it with this act of devotion, in a sense, and i think it seeded in him this belief that he could, through an act of will, he could get himself to places that other people didn't think he could. (bell tolling) >> in eighth grade in catholic schools, february was vocation month. the priest or the nuns would come into our classroom and talk about the vocation of becoming a nun and the vocation of becoming a priest. joe was very taken by it, and i remember his coming home to mom and dad and his saying,

"you know, i, i might want to be, i think i might want to become a priest." >> (speaking latin) >> the church imposed a sense of ritual, a sense of hierarchy, a sense of being part of something larger than yourself. all of these were really this essential piece of what it meant to be a biden. ♪ ♪ >> biden sees in the insecurities of his youth: kids making fun of him, his father messing up in business. he has a craving for security and he finds it in these institutions that are permanent-- the church and its thousands of years of, of ritual. that if you master, you can build a career for yourself, a reputation, and a security for yourself, your family, your community.

and that, to him, was enormously appealing. >> (speaking latin) >> for a lot of boys growing up in that culture, you know, this is what you look up to, it's what you, what you aspire to. to have a priest in the family, it's a real honor for the family. when you become a priest, you get all the prestige, and you get the social status, and you get the, the spiritual status. ♪ ♪ >> and so joe said, "maybe, you know, i'm, i'm thinking about priesthood." at that time, young boys went from eighth grade, they went into the seminary at ninth grade. and my mom said, "well, it's wonderful "if you wa to be a priest. "but there's no way in hell you're going at ninth grade. "you go to high school, you go to college. "and when you get out, and if you want to be a priest, "you have my blessing. "but you're not going ininth grade. you're too little to make that decision." >> narrator: it was in high school

that joe discovered another calling. >> when he was in high school, john f. kennedy became the president. >> senator john f. kennedy, the youngest man ever voted into the white house, mr. kennedy is also the first catholic chief executive in the history of the country. >> and all of a sudden, an irish catholic, the first irish catholic to reach thehite house, became this enormous symbol for biden. >> ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. (crowd cheers and applauds) >> the election of jfk was such a moment. most, if not all, democrats of his generation really were invested in the kennedy story. >> the torch has been passed to a new generation of americans... >> jfk had talked about the torch being passed to a new generation,

and biden wants to be the guy picking up the torch. he certainly pursues status. i mean, he certainly wants to be a person of consequence. >> in fact, he went tohe library and started looking up kennedy's background to figure out, how did this person become president? what does it take to get there? >> narrator: now, the son of a car salesman, the bullied kid with a stutter, decided to aim impossibly high-- pursue john f. kennedy's path into politics. kennedy was a young senator. biden set his sights on the senate. jack had a picture-perfect wife. and joe would find a picture-perfect wife, neilia. >> when he first meets his wife, he tells her he wants to be a young senator, and then he wants to be president. he had that ambition very early on, which does tie in with john f. kennedy.

it's not until he's 78 that he actually becomes president. but the striving for something big and be president of the united states is something that biden has from, from the youngest of ages. he's spent more time than almost anyone in american history thinking about and running for president. >> senator robert francis kennedy died today, june 6, 1968. >> if this were an actual campaign train, senator kennedy would be on the platform of the last car. but today, that's where his casket rests. >> that terrible caravan of death of john f. kennedy, and then, of course, so close together, robert kennedy and martin luther king has a very profound effect on biden. >> now the car bearing senator kennedy is passing by... >> biden talks very movingly about standing there

to watch the train carrying robert kennedy's body. jfk had talked about the torch being passed to a new generation. well, you know, now the torch has been dropped. it has to be picked up. joe biden wants to be the guy who will be the new irish catholic politician picking up the torch. >> he called me into his office and he said to me, "i want you to help me. i want to run for office." and i said, "well, what do you want to run for?" and he said, "the united states senate." i said, "you're crazy." he said, "well, will you help me?" i said, "sure, i'll help you," you know, i mean... >> narrator: it was considered a fool's errand, unseating a popular incumbent to win a u.s. senate seat at age 29. >> joe biden asked me about getting involved in his campaign. i started off by telling him that there's no way he can win. cale boggs was the candidate for the senate. he'd been a two-term congressman, two-term governor,

two-term senator. he was beloved around the state. >> boggs was seen to be invincible. i mean, he had, he had won, like, 29 straight years of elections, in different elections. but he really believed in himself, he really believed that he could beat boggs. >> he was really positioning himself to be an alternative to an older generation that had come before, much the way that jfk had done that. >> the fact that i'm young, and, uh, and, uh, the fact that, uh, i still have some of my hair, and, uh, and my family was involved, and i have a very, i think, very appealing family... >> in many ways, he modeled his own candidacy after the kennedys. (crowd cheering and applauding) he and neilia would go out with the kids. they were all part of the operation. and it was, it was an amazing tableau. >> narrator: joe and neilia had built a family--

beau, hunter, and naomi. >> politics is so much of a family enterprise for the bidens, in a way that it was, too, for the kennedy family. but his family doesn't have the political connections or the financial connections that the kennedy family had. >> narrator: just about the only people who thought or the financial connections that the kennedy family had. he could win were joe biden and his family. >> i was the campaign manager. we, the bidens, we had no money. we had no power or influence. we didn't know anybody who was a big nameho could help us. but we had joe. >> thank you. >> right, we'll see you. >> hi, how are you? >> hi, how are you? >> joe biden's my name. >> there are extroverts and then there are joe biden extroverts. >> really appreciate it. thank you, thank you very much. >> he is a person who lives to interact with people. he's a born politician.

you get him in front of a rope line... (chuckling): you get him, you get him in a place where he gets to shake hands, he comes alive. (people clamoring) >> some people are in politics because they're in love with policy, but they're not necessarily in love with humans. the phrase "the common touch" is kind of an old one, but it was very around when joe ben started out. and he had it. joe biden loves the game of it. he loves the dance of it. >> (speaking indistinctly) >> he loves meeting people. he loves hugging strangers. >> he always made an incredible impression on people. i can remember, we did a poll, and something like half the people in the state thought they had met him personally. which was absolutely, totally, completely impossible. that's how he won. >> in delaware, two-term republican caleb boggs whipped by 29-year-old joseph biden.

>> he literally won by personal contact with people all across the state. >> i mean, the world literally changed overnight. no one expected it, including a lot of the people in the campaign. it was just a sense of, of the, the impossible had been accomplished. >> all of you have done something that the political pundits said there was no way in the world it could be done. (crowd cheering and applauding) >> he had gotten where he was through sheer will and charisma. and as far as he was concerned, those were the most powerful ingredients in politics. what that taught him was that if you can envelop people in a sense of who you are and just make them feel something, that that is a more effective political tool than having every policy detail at your disposal.

>> this is the honest-to-god truth. i can remember it as if it was clear as today. standing in that crowd, i was thinking, "i will never, ever again believe that anything's impossible." and i've looked at races for the last 50 years, well, almost 50 years, and i've never... no one's ever come to me with a race that was as impossible to win as this race. >> narrator: to joe biden, it was yet more proof he could decide to do the impossible. >> the need to perform, to prove the doubters wrong, that's deep down within him. that has been a part of him forever, and it is very much a part of how he thinks about proving the doubters wrong even now, at the age of 81. >> the youngest new face in the u.s. senate next year will be that of democrat joseph biden of delaware.

so young, in fact, that at the time of his election on november 7, biden was not yet old enough to serve. >> i could hardly wait to be 30, the constitutionally required age for entering the senate. (people talking in background) we threw a big party two-and- a-half weeks after the election. >> ♪ happy birthday, dear... ♪ >> there was a cake, and neilia and i cut it together, standing over it like we did our wedding cake, except that beau and hunt were there. >> for the first 29 years of his life, after having solved the problem of the stutter, joe biden had almost a kind of blessed existence. he discovered that, "okay, life's pretty good to me." >> i was a united states senator-elect at age 30. neilia and i had done this amazing thing together, and there was so much more we would do.

the doors were just beginning to swing open on the rest of our lives. (train bell clanging) ♪ ♪ >> i spent a good bit of time with joe. i was assigned to do a long, long piece on him-- something like, you know, "young mr. biden goes to washington." i rode on the train with him to washington one day. and he was very excited, i mean, he was almost like a little kid-- in fact, he was saying, you know, "hey, they're all going to think i'm a page here." just bubbling with excitement, kind of on top of the world. and i had lunch with neilia.

she was very pretty and quite intelligent, good company, charming, you know, easy to talk to. i just thought to myself, you know, "god, this couple really has everything." (phone rings) (receiver picks up) >> he was in his office in washington. they're just getting set up at that point. he's with his sister and some members of his staff. >> neilia was at home with the kids, taking care of the kids in wilmington. (phone rings) and the phone rings and val gets it. biden is sort of paying attention, then he really starts paying attention when he sees her face. >> i got a call from jimmy biden,

and he said, "come home, now. there's been an accident." and neilia was in the car, the station wagon, with the three children, beau, hunt, and naomi. and she had gotten the christmas tree and she was on her way home. (sirens blaring, emergency radios running) she was hit broadside by a tractor trailer. and she and naomi, who sat behind her in the car seat, uh, they died instantly, and beau and hunter were seriously injured. and my brother looked at me, and he said, "she's dead, isn't she?" and i said, "i don't know, joey." i did know-- jimmy had told me.

>> iould not speak. only felt this hollow core grow in my chest, like i was going to be sucked inside a black hole. >> in six short weeks, he went from being on top of the world to being a young widower, a father of two children, and a-- a single dad-- and a man with, you know, a broken heart. (sirens blaring) >> the minute i t to the hospital, i knew the worst had happened. the boys were both alive, but beau had a lot of broken bones and hunt had head injuries. >> and i don't think joe was ever young aga after that. just, it was kind of, it... just shattered, you know, all these thoughts of this

nice young couple and the life they were gonna have, and, uh... i don't think i ever went on to finishing that story i was working on-- it just changed everything, you know? (devices beeping and hissing) >> in a terrible way, he becomes more like the kennedys than anybody would ever wish. this fate that seems to drag on the success story of the kennedys, you know, in the worst possible way, it inserts itself into biden's life. >> the pain cut through like a shard of broken glass. i began to understand how despair led people to just cash it in. how suicide wasn't just an option, but a rational option. >> joe biden has a crisis of faith

in the most profound sorts of ways. he cannot believe in a benevolent god after having his wife and daughter taken from him. there's a crisis of faith about his own destiny and his own place in the world. he's on the cusp of being the youngest senator, and he feels as if this is not the thing for him to do. >> he was angry, he was really angry. i mean, there was a, almost a physical sense of agony and rage about it. (wind blowing, rain falling) he and his brother used to go out at night and go look for people to get in fights with. >> i just felt rage, absolute rage, anger. it just didn't make sense, and i could not understand that. >> he's not even sure what to do.

he's not sure he can even be a senator anymore. "who am i? what, what do i do here?" and he just considers giving up. >> narrator: in his darkest moment, he returned to the biden motto: "get up." >> the legacy that neilia left me was the ability to draw strength from what she was, and not weakness from her no longer being. >> sudden death, out of the blue, seems to say, "the universe has no meaning. life has no meaning." and so you can look to the things that are available to him to try to insert meaning back in, and one is politics. >> since the accident, he's been living at a hospital

in wilmington, delaware, taking care of his sons. today, the senate sent an official to the hospital to swear him in. >> biden had requested that he take his senatorial oath in the hospital so that his children could be with him. (people laughing, hunter exclaims) >> can you make a speech, too? sure, you can make a speech. >> i want to make. >> well, go ahead and make one, then. >> do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the constitution of the united states, so help you god? >> i do. >> congratulations, senator. >> thank you, thank you. >> after the crash, he needed something to comfort him. he needed something to envelop himself in. (sirens blaring in distance) he needed a place to be a part of that would sustain him and would give him a sense of purpose and give him a sense of achievement. and the senate gave biden a sense of belonging.

biden's instinct is to envelop himself in institutions. >> narrator: the senate would define biden and shape his life. >> here's a guy who had grown up within the church, which is defined by this sense of ritual and ancient traditions. things that are worth preserving because they provide order in a disordered world. and he gets to the senate at a moment of tremendous chaos in his own life, having suffered this terrible loss, and all of a sudden, the rituals of the senate, and the kind of clarifying effect of being a part of this institution, almost feels to him like an extension of these values and paand his familyd made sas a young person.m so the senate became a sort of stand-in for the church for him.

♪ ♪ (train bell clanging) >> joe biden has this ritual, where, every day, he's getting on the train, taking it to washington union station, and at night, he's going back home to be with his boys. it's so poignant because there was so much guilt that was associated with his relationship with these two boys. because he was constantly having to leave them.

and even when he was returning late at night, it was often after they were already asleep. ♪ ♪ >> there was such a bond with joe and the boys. joe made them better, and they made joe better. but at nighttime, when you close the door, he was still alone, and a widower, and a single d. >> these three guys had been through hell together. and when jill came, you know, they hit the jackpot in terms of, they had mommy, lost mommy, they got mom, and they hit the jackpot with jill, and they knew it. >> she was a gift. she made my brother whole. she was a gift to the entire family.

he fell in love with her very quickly, and, uh, she fell in love with my brother, and mostly, she fell in love with the boys. i saw my brother come alive again, i saw him smile. i saw him get up in the morning and, you know, "the world's the oys..." i mean, "i'm taking on the world." >> when i was dating joe, jimmy and frankie took me out to dinner. they wanted to let me know that the family plan was that joe would someday be president. and so they were letting me in on this, and kind of warning me that if i was going to marry him, that this was part of the plan. and i listened, and i was...

it was kind of surreal, but i sort of brushed it off, because it just didn't seem possible at that moment. (people talking in background) >> biden has always wanted to be a player in presidential politics. >> okay. >> (talking in background) >> he's always been someone who's thought about running, wanted to run. a longtime biden confidant once told me that fish swim, birds fly, and joe biden runs for president. >> thank you very much! (crowd cheering and applauding) >> narrator: 1987 would be his first shot at the presidency. it was a family affair-- the boys had grown up, and he and jill had a daughter, ashley. >> he wants to prove himself.

if you spend your childhood mocked and ridiculed for a stutter, if you feel like your family has taken a downward turn because your father's career and finances have collapsed, you want to prove yourself. so yeah, he'll run for president in 1987 as a young man. >> biden is gambling that his politics of passion will impress the voters more than the issue politics practiced by most of his democratic rivals. >> biden is running in the ideological center. often criticized for a lack of substance in his speeches... >> that's always been one of his challenges. he casts about for what he wants to say. he casts about for the issues he wants to put forward and what he wants to say he beeves in. and it, and it feels cast about. >> he's searching for messages and rhetoric that connects.

and so he finds speeches that are emotionally powerful, he hears them... ...and he incorporates them into his own sense of self. >> why am i the first kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? >> the ad was riveting. i couldn't take my eyes off neil kinnock. >> is it because they were weak? those people who could wake, work eight hours underground, and then come up and play football? weak? >> he takes bits of speeches from the british labour leader, neil kinnock, and he kind of uses them pretty much verbatim. >> why is it that joe biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? >> joe biden borrowed it and applied it to his own life and made a moving sort of aria,

a moving sort of part of a speech about his own life, which, in fact, had been taken from neil kinnock. >> is it because they didn't work hard? my ancestors who worked in the coal mines in northeast pennsylvania, and who'd come up after 12 hours and play football for four hours? >> joe biden as a political performer was inhabiting the role only a little too well. i mean, he absorbed this story into his own, and of course, it was not his own story. >> i hope you'll consider me-- thank you very much. >> and that concludes the united for america debate... (crowd cheers and applauds) >> democratic presidential candidate joseph biden toy faces a controversy... >> biden seemed to be claiming kinnock's vision and life as his own. >> biden said that he often quoted kinnock with attribution. >> what i should have said, i should have said, "to paraphrase neil kinnock..." >> it kicked off an entire study of how much of joe biden was real

and how much of it was taken and absorbed and patched together. >> for a second time in two weeks, senator joseph biden... >> he looks like a joe biden wind-up doll, with somebody else's words coming out. >> when he was accused of plagiarism, we felt that, you know, his character was being attacked. and it sort of took us back. >> one from john kennedy's inaugural. others from robert kennedy. their words from theips of joe biden. >> we cannot measure the health of our children... >> ...the health of our children... >> ...the quality of their education... >> ...the quality of their education... >> ...the joy of their play... >> ...or the joy of their play. >> this moment attacks biden on the very issue that he's most sensitive about, which is being accepted and feeling like he belongs and, and like he has achieved great things in his life, and like that should be respected. >> anything that kind of gets through the thick skin really hits a raw nerve for him. >> senator, i have one real quick question:

what law school did you attend, and where did you place in that class? and the other question is... >> who cares? >> ...could you quickly... >> i think i probably have a much higher i.q. than you do, i suspect-- i went to law school on a full academic scholarship... >> he's, uh, he comes alive in some way when he's, when he's pissed, you know? (laughs): he, he seems more like a real person. you know, he's, he's this... he's suddenly this kind of little kid who feels he has to really stand up for himself against the llies. >> the only one in my, in my class to have a full academic scholarship, and in fact ended up in the top half of my class. and i'd be delighted to sit down and compare my i.q. to yours, if you'd like, frank. >> if i could say one thing... >> that's the insecurity talking, and it's always there, lurking just below the surface. he has this acute sensitivity to anybody looking down on him. >> syracuse university law school records show he sought a partial, not full, scholarship for financial, not academic reasons, that he finished

not in the top half, but 76th out of 85 students. >> i look at his ambition, and joe biden is just, he wants to grab you by the lapels to tell you, "(bleep) damn it, i am smart! (bleep) damn it, i am a great man in history!" and clearly, there is this drive that's born out of this scarring experience of his father taking this downward tumble, that because of his stammer, he was bullied as a kid. that creates this desire to assert himself, to assert his dignity, to assert his place in the world. >> i felt it was so unfair what happened to him. the one thing that joe prided himself on was, you know, was his honesty and his integrity,

and now it was being attacked. (camera shutters clicking) and he had to pull out of the race. >> hello, everybody. delightful to see you all here. you know my wife, jill. >> narrator: it was an agonizing decision: standing down, at least for the moment. >> i can remember so clearly getting out of the race. i didn't think, "oh, we'll do it again." i thought, um... i'm telling you, it was really, um, scarring, i guess, would be a good word. >> the exaggerated shadow of tho mistakes has begun to obscure the essence of my candidacy and the essence of joe biden. >> jill biden just looked at the cameras, and you could just hear all the cameras clicking. she just had this blank stare on her face. i think she developed sort of a, a long-term mistrust

of, of the press as a result of that race. (camera shutters clicking) it definitely steeled her and made her a much more guarded political spouse going forward. >> thanks, folks-- my wife and i thank you very much, and... tommy, thanks for being here-- thank you. (people applauding) >> there are still scars from that campaign today that they carry with them. >> delaware senator joseph biden dropped out... >> joe biden blames mostly himself for blowing it. >> the delaware senator said he was a victim of his own mistakes... (sirens blaring) (speech echoing faintly) (speech continues) >> joe biden was pretty chastened and embarrassed

by the 1988 aborted run for the presidency. he doesn't want to ever be accused of being an artificial, plastic politician again. (speech echoing faintly) he doesn't want anybody to ever question his smartness ever again. >> narrator: he would rebuild himself in the senate, becoming a leading figure on the foreign relations committee, deepening his bipartisan credentials, and chairing the senate judiciary committee. (camera shutters clicking) >> senate hearings began on the supreme court nomination of clarence thomas. >> clarence thomas, he's conservative, an outspoken critic of affirmative action, former head of the equal employment opportunity commission. >> we see judge, judge thomas now with the chairman of the judiciary committee. >> narrator: just a few years after his failed run for president, joe biden was again in the spotlight,

overseeing a high-profile supreme court confirmation hearing. >> there's chairman joseph biden, and i think he's just about ready to get the proceedings underway. (gavel bangs) >> the hearing will come to order. good morning, judge. welcome to the blinding lights. >> for biden, the clarence thomas hearings were a chance to shine. it was the national stage, national television, and he was the face of the senate. and so, as an institutionalist, biden sees this as a moment for him and the senate to show how america can work best. >> heck, you are six, seven years younger than--'m 48. how old are you, judge? forty-two, -three? >> well, i've aged over the last ten weeks, but, uh... (all laughing)

i'm 43. >> 43 years old! because of your youth, judge... >> narrator: but before long, biden had a crisis on his hands. this affidav contained allegations that thomas sexually harassed a former employee, anita hill. >> good evening-- we begin tonight with the potential for political explosion on capitol hill. >> clarence thomas ran into trouble today. >> questions are growing over charges of sexual harassment against thomas. >> the fbi did indeed interview anita hill, a former subordinate of thomas's... >> trouble today for clarence thomas. enough trouble that some senators are calling for a postponement of this week's confirmation vote. >> but committee chairman biden conceded tonight that new information... >> narrator: with the pressure mounting, biden decided to allow anita hill to air her allegations. >> the hearing will come to order. welcome, professor hill.

professor, do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god? >> i do. >> thank you. >> it struck me as, you know, something's wrong with this picture. this is, you know, you, you see the, the panel of, of white men... ♪ ♪ ...and you wonder if anita hill is getting a fair shake. >> it seems to have been a nightmare for joe biden. as a man, he felt uncomfortable about it. as a white man, he felt uncomfortable about it. the whole subject matter just made him incredibly uncomfortable. >> can you tell the committee what was the most embarrassing of all the incidences that you have alleged? >> i think the one that was the most embarrassing was his discussion of, of pornography

involving these women with large breasts and, and ha, engaged in variety of sex with different people, or animals. that was the thing that embarrassed me the most and made me feel the most humiliated. >> biden had no idea what to do with this particular situation. he could have done something to provide her with some support, some comfort, but that didn't happen. >> narrator: angela wright also worked with clarence thomas. >> there were actually three other women, other than myself, who were willing to testify, who had actually said they called senator biden's office and, and offered their own testimony. >> narrator: wright offered her own stark allegations, which thomas denied.

>> he asked me in one situation what size breasts, my breasts were. he told me he wanted to date me. this is a man who has all, who, in my opinion, has often spoken inappropriately to women. >> let me now yield to my friend from pennsylvania, senator specter. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator biden allowed members of that committee to grill professor hill in a way that was inappropriate and humiliating. >> i find the references to the alleged sexual harassment not only unbelievable, but preposterous. how reliable is your testimony, in october of 1991, on events that occurred eight, ten years ago? >> there was a question of whether or not joe biden could have done more to protect anita hill, to defend her, to speak up for her. >> ...and in the context of a sexual harassment charge...

>> joe biden didn't use his platform as a leader of that committee to stand up for anita hill, to say that he believed her. >> joe bid is a member of this fraternity, a member of this old boys' society that is the u.s. senate. he is somebody who looks at his fellow senators, who looks at the likes of arlen specter... of course he's going to be deferential to them. he's not going to want to have an adversarial relationship with them. >> you testified that the most embarrassing question involved-- this is not too bad-- women's large breasts. that's a word we use all the time. that was the most embarrassing aspect of what judge thomas... >> that moment was the limitations of his capacity for empathy. joe biden drew the perimeter of his world,

of his life, as members of the united states senate, but that perimeter did not extend, at that point, to the women who were accusing clarence thomas of doing terrible things. >> it is the intention of the chair to have judge thomas back. in fairness to him, he should have an opportunity tonight... >> narrator: biden gave clarence thomas the last word, a chce he'd use to deny the allegations. >> this is a circus. it's a national disgrace. and from my standpoint as a black american, as far as i'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks, by a committee of the u.s. senate, rather than hung from a tree. >> the term "high-tech lynching" really put a number of the democratic senators on their heels. they saw the racial overtones of that statement. they saw how clarence thomas was going on offense.

a lot of the senators just did not want to have to deal with this. (gavel bangs) >> narrator: with that, biden moved to wrap up the hearings. angela wright and the other women accusing thomas would not testify. >> joe biden was so determined to try to satisfy everybody in that moment, that he ended up satisfying nobody. >> he's kind of in the middle of the road. i'm a southern woman, and i've always heard that the only thing in the middle of the road is road kill and yellow stripes. and that you have to take a position and you have to decide what you stand for. >> narrator: biden ended up voting against thomas, but the anita hill hearing would be a stain on his reputation. >> 98% male u.s. senate, which many say almost slipped anita hill's allegations under the rug. >> senator biden allowed them to ask her very difficult questions indeed. >> the senate's botched handling of the thomas nomination

is just one more black mark. >> january of '07. >> yes. >> are you running for president? >> i am running for president. >> are you filing for... >> biden running again just seems like some sort of crazily persistent delusion. you know, you've tried this before, it hasn't worked. why the hell are you still going, you know? it's not going to work this time. is, is anybody in 2005, 2006 thinking, "what the country really needs is joe biden," you know, apart from joe biden? >> i'm going to be joe biden, i'm going to try to be the best biden i can be. if i can, i've got a shot; if i can't, i lose. >> narrator: but his campaign quickly started to unravel on national television. >> it sure isn't easy running for president these days. this was not a good day for joe biden was it? >> no, it really wasn't. >> he just got into the race today, and no sooner than he did, he talked his way into a national controversy. >> he spent much of the day

discussing these comments he made to a newspaper reporter about senator barack obama: >> i mean, you got the first sort of mainstream african-american... >> yeah. >> who is articulate and bright, and-- and clean and a nice-looking guy. i mean, it's... that's a storybook, man. >> yeah. >> some people listening to those descriptions of obama-- "articulate, clean"-- heard racial overtones, or at the very least condescension. >> i think when people heard "the clean and articulate" line, there was a wave of eye-rolling, certainly among african americans. it was the kind of well-intentioned but benighted commentary at you expect from people who inhabit environments where there aren't very many black people, and the united states senate has historically been a prime example of that. >> tonight, his campaign is doing damage control. >> there goes joe biden, running his mouth one more time.

how humiliating to be hoist on this, this dumb aside that he makes about barack obama. >> joe biden's apologizing for a remark he made about senator barack obama... >> and of course that's going to be the thing that does him in-- it's totally, completely humiliating. >> the latest news is that joe biden is dropping out of the race. joe biden is dropping out... >> nobody is paying attention to joe biden. it is humiliating. from the brash young upstart candidate of 1987, now he's the picture of the establishment that nobody wants anymore. (train horn blares) (bell ringing) (birds chirping) >> it really did seem like that might be the end. he had run for president twice, it hadn't worked.

and then, the most unlikely thing happened, which is barack obama, the person who he had offended earlon in this race, decided actually he needed joe biden in his candidacy. (phone ringing) >> president obama believes that diversity is a strength, and that the country was absorbing a lot picking their first black president. and so having someone who had years of experience in the senate, someone who had vast experience in foreign affairs, i think he thought they made a good team. >> he accepts the vice presidency because barack obama genuinely seems to need joe biden, and there's a way in which it flatters joe biden's ego, to feel like he's needed. and joe biden always wants to feel essential, indispensable. >> barack obama is projected to be the next president... >> senator barack obama of illinois will be the next...

(cheers and applause) >> narrator: two decades after he'd first run, joe biden was closer to the presidency than ever. >> biden's life has been full of these kinds of almost miraculous turns. biden gets to be part of an operation that was not just making history, but it was cool. (cheers and applause) i mean this was a group led by obama and michelle obama, who felt like they were laying the path to a new form of politics, a more inclusive, pathbreaking politics. (cheers and applause) and biden got to be a part of that. in many ways, obama provided a form of redemption for joe biden. (cheers and applause) >> there was a lot of skepticism about joe biden among black voters. they were remembering the anita hill hearings. he had this image as a good old boy, someone from an earlier era,

someone who grew up during segregation. the fact that the first black president had appointed him to be his vice president really did a lot for joe biden for his standing in the black community. (cheers and applause) (train horn honking) >> narrator: his political career may have rebounded, but being vice president wasn't the job he'd been chasing all those years. >> i mean, it is a second-class job by definition. it doesn't hold a lot of authority, and you're there just in case. (siren wailing) to be in the white house as second fiddle was frustrating. >> he'd been chairman of the judiciary committee, chairman of foreign relations committee, senior in about everything he's done. well, that's very... that's very big, that's powerful. and to givthat up for a number two spot

that you really can't do anything significant without getting the president, your boss', okay and approval? sure, there had to be an adjustment there. >> you know, i look at biden sometimes, and sometimes i think i see when the camera... he believes has turned away from him and is no longer still on him. you get a sense of the sadness. his face folds into some considerable anguish. >> narrator: to make matters worse, the president made jokes at biden's expense. (cheers and applause) >> all this change hasn't been easy, so i've cut the tension by bringing a new friend to the white house. he's warm, he's cuddly, loyal, enthusiastic, and you just have to keep him on a tight leash-- every, every once in a while, he goes charging off in the wrong direction and gets himself into trouble, but...

uh, enough about joe biden. (laughter) (laughter and applause) >> there was this tendency that barack obama had to make joe biden the puhline of his jokes, which then gave permission to everybody else in the room to roll their eyes at joe biden. and so it was this death spiral for joe biden, where he just kept tumbling down the status order. >> biden was already mid-60s, close to 70 when he was vice president. there were some young staffers who would, you know, they look at him as the old, kind of crazy uncle joe. >> and it pains him, because it goes back to who he was as a child when he was made fun of. like, it was frustrating to him

to be thought of as... just uncle joe. >> and he brings the issue to obama. and he sits down with him at lunch and says, "listen, you know... "you can't be talking about me that way, "because it will diminish me, and i will be less valuable to you." and obama took that to heart. >> joe stayed focused on who he was, what he was doing, and the relationship he had with the president. that's probably what got him through all that. >> the relationship grew, i think it grew over time, it grew through adversity. joe biden had a very consequential vice presidency, i mean, he was given special projects that were extremely important in the moment. (siren wailing) >> biden did the parts of the white house job that obama didn't really want to have to do. obama never wanted to set foot in congress again

if he could avoid it. biden, on the other hand, loved it. you know, he kept his gym membership at the senate gym because he liked to go back there and schmooze with people. >> in the senate, vice president biden to this day enjoys relatnships on both sides of the aisle. he knew that he could call them and they would take his call and he could go and thrash issues out with them. (laughter) >> the real question isn't "what thing did you do?" if you're vice president. the real question is, "how much influence on the president "and the national policy coming out of the executive branch did the vice president have?" and i think biden had as much influence as any modern vice president, maybe with the exception of dick cheney. i think he was a very influential vice president, and an extremely loyal vice president.

(waves crashing) ♪ ♪ >> there's been an uncommon bond between my boys and i. it is different than anything that i've ever experienced in my life. i truly enjoy... >> beau biden is the apple of biden's eye. he was not just someone who he thought was brilliant and successful, and so proud of him. it was... it went beyond pride. it was almost like, "he's the perfect version of me." >> the distinguishing feature about beau is how steady he is. he's carried, in this one sense, a heavier burden than my other children, but my god, he's not only carried it, he's shouldered it. >> beau biden was the literal extension of joe biden's aspirations in politics. the assumption within the family was this idea of becoming the kennedys 2.0,

and beau biden is the future, he is the one who is going to carry the torch. >> he's already finding the campaign trail eating up all of his family time, so his family travels with him. that's his son beau who was along tonight. >> this is my son, beau biden. >> hi, how are you? >> nice to meet you. >> nice meeting you. >> big mike, meet my big guy-- this is beau. >> hi. >> hi. >> joe biden really used to say about beau that, "beau biden had all of my good qualities and none of my bad qualities." >> how are you guys? >> well, hi, bishop, nice to meet you. >> hi, good to see you. >> my honor. meet my son, beau biden. >> hi. >> hi there, young man, nice meeting you today. >> beau biden was someone he wanted to see become president of the united states. (applause) he was ready to do everything possible to help beau rise in american life. >> beau had a very informative childhood, you know, being around his father since he was in grade school. you're around people

that are interesting, i mean, you are very up-to-speed at a young age in, in, you know, what's happening in the world, what's happening domestically, what's happening internationally. >> (speaking russian): joseph biden... (continues in russian) (indistinct chatter) >> if you thought that joe biden could be president biden, no question beau biden could've been president biden, no question. they had the same skill sets. >> beau was his father's child in that he was a public servant. he was the attorney general. >> he's back home now. >> and went to serve in iraq. >> she wants... you guys know this guy? this is my son. >> (chuckles) >> my number one son. >> (inaudible) ...this way. >> and was on his way running for governor. (cheers and applause) >> there's no question that he sees beau as his successor. (distant cheering)

undoubtedly thdeath of beau's mother, biden's first wife, makes that even more necessary. beau surviving th car crash, you know, being the kid who emerges literally from the wreckage, you know, feels like there's a kind of deiny that's... that terrible, terrible moment wi be somehow balanced out in the future by the swearing in of president beau, you know. (cheers and applause) >> my dad is joe biden. a few years ago... >> narrator: but beau's destiny would be denied. >> he's the father i've always known, the grandfather... >> narrator: he was sick, and his father knew it. >> ...my great honor to place into nomination my father, my hero, joe biden. (cheers and applause) joe biden

as the democratic vice presidential candidate. (cheers and applause) >> narrator: beau biden was dying of brain cancer. (cheers and applause) >> ...but at what cannot be seen. for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. may the peace of god the creator, redeemer, and sustainer, surround each of you as we begin this time of thankfulness for beau's life. asking god to grant peace for today and hope for tomorrow. amen. ♪ ♪ >> i saw most clearly how he felt about beau's death

at the wake. there was supposed to be a wake fm 2:00 to 4:00 and 6:00 to 8:00. and i went of course at about 2:00. and the vice predent was there. he stood like granite for six hours at the coffin. (voice breaking): and, uh... the sense you had was, uh... "this was my boy."

um... and i think, probably... if there is a heaven, god wept in heaven with him. ♪ ♪ (thunder rumbling) (siren wailing) (rain pouring) >> i happened to be in obama's white house... and biden walked in. and i, honestly... it was almost like i didn't recognize him this was shortly after beau died. he just looked like he had aged years and years in such a short amount of time.

>> people detected, incredibly noticeably, these dramatic changes within joe biden. they noticed physical changes in joe biden, that this guy who had been really vigorous was starting to age rapidly in front of them. he was no longer the gregarious guy trying to monopolize the air time. he would recede in meetings. >> it's just impossible to imagine how you deal with this terrible, terrible moment of grief. again it faces biden with this choice, you know, this is what we keep coming up with biden, you know, that he's faced with choices nobody would want to make. and so, again, he either does the thing that i think most of us would do at that stage, which is just, say, "i'm done." or you somehow find some way of saying,

"well, i still have to make sense of this, "i still have to inject some kind of meaning into all of this cruel tragedy that life has inflicted on me." and the only meaning for a 50-year politician, you know, is the presidency. which has always been in his mind, but now it becomes almost not just a kind of political career, it becomes... a personal salvation. >> narrator: as he had before in moments of tragedy, he returned to the biden motto "get up," and his abiding political ambition, but it hinged on the support of president obama. >> they were together for eight years, for two terms. president obama gave the eulogy at beau biden's funeral. here you are, working for someone

for almost eight years, you have this person's back for eight years, and now you're looking to them to support you, and you find out they're supporting someone else. (crowd cheering) >> hillary! hillary! >> (crowd chanting along): hillary! hillary! >> narrator: obama would instead support hillary clinton. >> thank you so much! >> (chanting): hillary! hillary! hillary! hillary! >> what obama's saying is, "well, in your condition, "with all the stuff you've suffered, "you really shouldn't be putting yourself through a presidential campaign." obama was sort of using beau's death as a way to excuse his own betrayal of biden. ♪ ♪ now, that's a, that's a... pretty harsh, cruel thing to do. (cameras clicking) >> narrator: biden would be forced to do it again: to stand down.

>> good morning, folks. please, please sit down. uh, mr. president, thank you for lending me the rose garden for a minute. >> it's a pretty nice place. (crowd chuckling) >> unfortunately, i believe we're out of time, the time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination. but while i will not be a candidate, i will not be silent... >> he had been in the senate for 36 years, he had been vice president for eight... and knowing that he had run twice already for the presidency and didn't make it, there was this very strong feeling in washington that he was putting a period on the end of his political career. >> ...than merely by the example of our power... >> he really does seem, at that moment, like a tragic figure, in an almost gek sense, you know, someone who the gods have chosen to pile these miseries on, you know.

everything kind of moves together to, to, uh, just blow up somebody's life and somebody's sense of themselves, and that's what seems to be happening to biden at that time. both his public and to some extent his private lives are over. >> but i'm telling ya, we can do so much more. (hitting podium emphatically) i'm looking forward to continue to work with this man to get it done. thank you. thank you all very much. (cheers and applause) ♪ ♪ >> yeah! (cheering, brass band playing) ♪ ♪ >> narrator: joe biden watched as the trump presidency roiled america. >> joe biden, like any number of people

in the democratic party, sees the true crisis of american democracy in the trump presidency. >> (crowd chanting): jews will not replace us! >> mayhem in charlottesville... >> but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. russian collusion, give me a break. >> president trump now facing outrage after firing comey. >> i did you a great favor when i fired this guy. >> i think there were regrets about not running in '16. i think he believed he, he... he could have and would have beaten president trump. whatever regre there were, whatever sense of "oh, i should have done it, maybe things would be different," i really think the driving force was the profoundly dangerous direction the country was headed in. >> chaos, confusion, and anger growing in the wake of president trump's immigration ban. >> president trump turning up the political heat with tweets critics are calling "racist and xenophobic." >> biden looked at trump

and saw the antithesis of so much that biden had tried to be in politics. >> what he's trying to do is make america hate again. >> at one point today, the esident asking, "what good is nato?" >> biden was somebody who had tried to be reverential of the institutions, the idea of compromise. these were things that he considered hallowed ground. and here's this guy coming along who is desecrating a lot of the values that biden thought were dignifying values of politics. >> for only the third time in american history, the house of representatives has voted to impeach a president. donald trump... >> narrator: now biden would try yet again for the presidency. >> the ironies can't be lost on anyone. here he is now, he's going to run against a guy who people call the biggest bully there is. joe biden, the guy who can't stand bullies, who spent his life defending others from bullies?

it's almost like a greek play. now here you are at the end of your life, and the one last move is to defeat the bully. (cheers and applause) >> hello, philadelphia. (cheers and applause) >> narrator: he was 76 years old. >> thank you, thank you, thank you. >> in philadelphia, joe biden had his kickoff rally of his campaign. and you'll see at the end, you know, all of the grandchildren are there, and they come onstage. hley comes onstage. jill comes onstage. but hunter does not. you know, he's off on a drug bender at the moment. hunter biden is in perhaps the deepest despair of his life. he'sisappearing for long stretches,

and his father doesn't know where he is. >> as with any family with a family mber who is going through some sort of substance abuse, it's super hard to watch your child descend into these kinds of behaviors, and it's no different when you're a politician like joe biden was, versus a regular, average american. ♪ ♪ >> it's dad, i called to tell you i love you. i love you more than the whole world, pal. you gotta get some help. i don't know what to do. i know you don't either, but, i'm here, no matter what you need, no matter what you need. i love you. ♪ ♪ >> joe biden wants to be

as emotionally supportive as he can with, with hunter. from joe biden's perspective, this is his only surviving son. there's a lot of raw emotions, i think, between the two of them. >> narrator: biden's decision to run put hunter in the spotlight. >> at the end of the day, the family realized that the fight that they had was a bigger fight. they thought tha he was uniquely positioned to defeat donald trump. his children and his grandchildren gathered together and id, "we know we're gonna take some bullets, "we know that we're going to be negatively impacted "by a nasty campaign, but we're ready for it and you should jump in this race." (crowd cheering) >> by the way, what ever happened to hunter? where the hell is he? (cheering, whistling) where's hunter? hey fellas, i have an idea for a new t-shirt. i love the cops, but let's do another t-shirt:

"where's hunter?" (crowd cheering) >> where is he? >> generally in politics, there is a unwtten rule that family members are typically off-limits, because, you know, children d't ask for this. >> (crowd chanting): where is hunter? (trump chuckling) >> (crowd chanting): where is hunter? >> president trump saw hunter biden and the troubles that he was in as a way to get under joe biden's skin, to rattle him, to try to throw him off his game. you know, to hurt him, to inflict, to inflict pain, basically. >> ...and i resent... >> are you talking about hunter? are you talking about hunter? >> i'm talking my son beau biden. you're talking... i don't know, i don't know beau. i know hunter. >> yeah, you know beau. >> hunter got thrown, hunter got thrown of the military. he was thrown out, dishonorably discharged... >> that's not true. he wasn't dishonora... >> ...for cocaine use, and he didn't have a job

until you became vice president, and once you became vice president... >> none of that is true. >> ...he made a fortune in ukraine, in china, in moscow and various other places. >> that is simply not true. >> he made a fortune... >> my son-- my son... >> ...and he didn't have a job. >> my son, like a lot of people, like a lot of people we know at home, had a drug problem. he's overtaken it, he's, he's, fixed it, he's worked on it, and i'm proud of him. >> the thing that i think is probably most painful for joe biden is the knowledge that his son would not be subjected to all of this public scrutiny were it not for his own political career and his own political ambitions. and if you're joe biden, you definitely feel some sort of responsibility, and guilt, and culpability for what your son's being subjected to. >> the deadly coronavirus, officially hitting the u.s.

>> at least 12 confirmed cases right here in the united states. >> narrator: in the midst of the campaign-- covid. >> a tragic turn in the coronavirus outbreak, the first death from the disease here in the united states. >> you had a nation that was reeling from covid, in which people were quite literally grieving for members of their family. >> empty seets lead to packed emergency rooms across new york city. (siren wailing) >> paralysis in this typically vibrant city in just a matter of weeks. >> and grieving for the direction of the country under trump. >> what do you say to americans who are watching you right now who are scared? >> i say that you're a terrible reporter, that's what i say. go ahead. i think that's a veryasty question, and i think it's a very bad signal that you're putting out to the american people. the american people are looking for answers... >> iwas this moment that biden found that all of this language and philosophical preparation that he'd spent all these years investing in about how to survive and how to grieve,

all of a sudden it became politically relevant. politics was as much about grief and recovery as it was about any policy idea. >> he's someone who can empathize. he's someone who understands the impact that tragedy and trauma can have on an individual or on a family as we were going through a period in our country where, collectively, so many people were experiencing loss. >> what is on the ballot here is the character of this country: decency, honor, respect, treating people with dignity. and i'm gonna make sure you get that. you haven't been getting it the last four years. >> joe biden was so laser-focused on what we had to do for the american people and how we had to communicate with them during that me of crisis. he chose to be the stable leader and voice

of the american people. >> biden's promise to the public was, "i'gonna return things to something more recognizable in politics." it might be a little boring at times. in fact, he almost explicitly promised to take up less space in people's minds. you know, he kind of said, "i, i don't really think that politics needs to be "this all-encompassing inferno that, that kind of consumes us all." >> narrator: and finally, after a lifetime of striving, it worked. >> the fox news decision desk can now project that former vice president joe biden will win pennsylvania and nevada. >> he is president-elect joseph robinette biden >> ...become the 46th president of the united states. >> i, joseph robinette biden jr., do solemnly swear... >> there is this very deep sense that, "this is why i'm here. "this, this is what all this horrible pain is about.

"this is what all this difficulty is about. "this is what all the slights i've had to endure, "all the ways in which i've been underestimated "and mistreated through life. "all of these absurdities that have been piled on me, uh, "through, through death and illness. "um, well, okay, this is, this is it, you know. "i'm here now. "and there's something that matters, not just to me, but to america and the world." (sirens wailing in distance) >> our nation's capital under a state of emergency, under a city-wide lockdown. the chaos here has shaken the u.s. capital and the country. >> because of january 6, there are barbed wire and military vehicles in the streets and soldiers surrounding the capitol. it looks like an encampment. >> tens of thousands of police, federal agents, and national guard troops on the streets.

>> for biden, it's not the moment of personal triumph that he, i think, might have imagined because the country is in such dire straits at this point. he is inheriting one of the most uncertain periods in our modern history. you have a raging epidemic that has yet to be conquered. you have an economy that has just collapsed overnight. you have schools that are closed and businesses that are closed. it felt like the whole thing was just really on edge. >> there were no crowds on the streets, cheering, like you've seen in so many images and videos of previous inaugurations. it was just an eerie feeling. >> how are you feeling? >> feeling good. >> after joe biden is finally sworn in as president, you know, he's finally gotten this thing that he's wanted his whole life, he couldn't really celebrate. there were no parties.

there were no inaugural balls because of covid. it was super weird. ♪ ♪ >> he came dn from the residence on the west colonnade towards the oval office. and i remember looking at him and saying, "this is just-- "this is an incredible thing to see after all this time, "uh, that he is coming into the oval office as president of the united states." so i felt a lot of excitement and a lot of anxiety about the fact that we were gonna now start to do a lot of work. >> we knew we were walking into a pandemic, an economy that was reeling, so there was a crisis management aspect, certainly, of the first year. he felt that when you come in as president, especially at the moment he did, he needed to be a healer. >> part of biden's promise to the public was, "i'm going to show you "that government can actually work again.

"that's what my decades of experience will deliver. "we can show that washington will work, "and we can put practical things in people's hands, like stimulus checks." >> the first batch of stimulus payments will start going out to americans in need this weekend. >> the president declaring, "help is here." >> he gets trillions of dollars in new spending passed by congress. >> these are the priorities that the biden administration has said they want to get done. >> $1.9 trillion covid stimulus relief package to help americans struggling throughout this pandemic. >> he's able to push people to get something done on the american rescue plan, then on infrastructure. >> the president is poised to sign into law the largest federal investment in infrastructure in generations. >> it will have transformative impact on the middle class. it will be huge for biden's legacy. >> works for months to try to get build back better revived. >> democrats will continue to fight for build back better. >> the ultimate test of the president's legislative power as the bill is in the hands of the senate.

>> he's trying to get so much done, and he does get a lot done. so the domestic front, biden has an fdr-like first year. >> this is the most successful legislative presidency. >> can surely be credited to the fact that joe biden has more legislative experience than any president in history. >> narrator: but during that first year, one decision would tarnish his presidency. >> i'm now the fourth united states president to preside over american troop presence in afghanistan. i will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth. >> biden was hellbent on withdrawing. he did not come into this with a, with an open mind, necessarily, to, uh, to any other options. he was hellbent on getting out. >> in this withdrawal in afghanistan, do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in vietnam with some people feeling... >> none whatsoever. zero. the taliban is not the sou-- the north vietnamese army.

they're not remotely comparable in terms of capability. there's gonna be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy of the united states. >> black smoke seen rising from the u.s. embassy, the chaos directly contradicting any talk of an orderly evacuation process. twenty years of american and nato-led gains collapsing in stunning fashion. (gunshots firing) (siren wailing, gunshot fires) >> as the taliban are approaching kabul... (gunfire) ...it becomes clear that the afghan forces that we have trained are vacating their posts and are not going to stand and fight. >> outside the last remaining u.s. base at kabul airport, chaos continues. >> (sobbing): help, help, help! (crying out)

taliban... >> i got you, i got you, i got you. >> the images that come out of that withdrawal is one of hastiness. it really becomes a moment for, for biden that undermines, uh, a lot of the things that he ran on, which was calm, steady, and, and competent. >> the truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. i stand squarely behind my decision. >> the president was very confident that his decision was the right one. he took no blame for any of that, what-- the aftermath that we saw.

>> at kabul international airport, time is running out. >> u.s. troops are scrambling to fly americans and allies out of the country. (explosion booms) >> an explosion, a large explosion outside of the abbey gate at the kabul airport. >> chaos and carnage as back-to-back bomb blasts tore through packed crowds at the airport. >> it is the deadliest attack on u.s. forces in afghanistan in a decade. >> 13 u.s. service members killed in this attack. >> and this will have to be a big moment for his presidency. this day. remember this day. >> the very rationale that had driven him to pull out, the risks to americans, all of a sudden that that had, had, in the worst possible way, had, had come to pass. ♪ ♪

>> joe biden went to dover air base for the dignified transfer of the bodies, and he met with the families, and as we all know, he's... nobody's better than joe biden at consoling the bereaved. um, he always talks about beau. ♪ ♪ and in this case he was confronted by several family members who were livid, inconsolable, shouting at him. >> they're like, "this isn't about your son; "this is about my son; this is about our kids. this is about what happened to them." for him, this moment where his empathy is usually a strength, it doesn't really work in the way it had for him in the past. >> mark, you met with biden over the weekend, how did that go >> um, it... (sighs) ...it didn't go well. um...

...he talked a bit more about his own son than we did my son, and that, that didn't sit well with me. >> we had family members at dover when we were there to, uh, receive our childr's bodies. that was the worst day of all of our lives. and to sit there and have him talk to us about beau was the biggest insult. >> and his response was, "i thought i was helping them." that's really where it genuinely came from. and for someone who's lost as much as he has, to ha... to have the reaction that it wasn't helping them, i think is especially, um, heart-wrenching. >> and as those families and friends grieved, the president of the united states stood there checking his watch. it was a scene that those families will never be able to forget. and they haven't. >> well, i stood there on the tarmac... (sniffs) ...watching you check your watch over and over again. all i wanted to do was shout out, "it's two (bleep) thirty!

ass (bleep)" mr. biden has run his entire political campaign for 50 years as the family man. well i've got news for you, sir-- the curtain has been lifting, and that campaign slogan will never work again. (thunder rumbles) >> it was the one moment in the course of the entire withdrawal from afghanistan where he was second-guessing himself. he second-guessed himself about his interactions with these grieving parents. and i think it haunted him. >> there's a brand new poll out. uh, joe biden is so far underwater right now. a majority of americans disapprove of his job performance. >> he is supposed to be the firm leader who's gonna take away the chaos. what was more chaotic than that american withdrawal

out of afghanistan? it changed public perception of biden in a way that he was never able to recover from. >> narrator: afghanistan was just the beginning. for joe biden, it would be crisis after crisis. >> nearly 60% of voters think biden's policies are making the economy worse. >> housing, shelter, food, medical costs, all rising. >> the big question now-- when will prices start dropping? >> and that has some americans losing patience with the biden administration. >> it felt like there was something new every day. you know it's part of working at the white house at all times. but it seemed particularly acute then. and we just had to keep working on it. >> inflation in the united states has jumped 7%. that number is sky-high. >> we haven't seen inflation run that hot in this country since 1982. >> suddenly the candidate who promised normalcy and calm

becomes the president of a period of volatility and uncertainty. >> millions of americans are simply being priced out of home ownership. >> with the interest rates going up, they are stuck. >> now to a key campaign issue-- the border crisis. >> this is not another headache the white house wants to deal with. >> if you add afghanistan to what's happened at the border and inflation, it feels like things are kind of out of our control. then you have russia invading ukraine and the gaza war. >> the russian assault has begun. russian president vladimir putin's war machine is now carving a path of destruction. >> the world, for reasons that have nothing to do with joe biden, is on fire. >> the middle east in flames. israel has formally declared war. >> hamas has launched a surprise attack within israel's borders overnight. >> and so much of his presidency has been about dousing those fires, and all of that firefighting may , um, may be extremely heroic,

but you're not gonna get credit for firefighting at the d. >> meanwhile he's facing the lowest poll numbers of his presidency. >> people will just remember the fact that the world felt out of control in that moment. >> americans have lost their confidence in president biden, and their optimism for the country. >> the way he saw it, he's doing things and trying to help people and legitimately helping people. the president had signed several pieces of legislation, but the goodwill that he wants them to feel toward him is just not there. >> a shocking 71% say we're on the wrong track and that includes a near majority of democrats who are saying that. >> the administration kept saying that when voters start to pay attenon, the polls will turn around, things will look better. but they've been saying that for a while, and it's just not showing up in the polling.

>> a new poll found more americans trust former president donald trump than biden to fix the economy. he probably is the most impactful president of my lifetime in passing legislation, he's just got to get out and sell it. >> on my watch, instead of having infrastructure week, america's having infrastructure decade. (cheers and applause) >> biden does go out and try to win people over, but he does it with less and less capacity to make a persuasive speech. (cheering) >> over a billion, 300 million, trillion, 300 million dollars... america's a nation that can be defined in a single word. (stammers) excuse me. >> his voice gets softer. his voice gets more raspy and remote. >> ...making sure that the third world, the, uh, excuse me, third world, the uh, the uh, the southern hemisphere... >> his physical presence seems to diminish with every passing month.

and so his ability to go out and sell his message, uh, really seems to decline over the course of his years in office. >> a top concern-- his age. >> more americans than not say biden is too old for a second term. >> every member of the biden cabinet should be asked when are they gonna start thinking about the 25th amendment. >> he has what i would call a very healthy chip on his shoulder, in the sense that he always feels underestimated; not always, but often. you're commander-in-chief, you're probably the most powerful person in the world; people are still underestimating you. he has one of the most accomplished legislative records of anyone who has ever served in the job-- still underestimated. >> two-thirds of americans in exit polls say that they don't think you should run for reelection. what is your message to them? and how does that factor into your final decision about whether or not to run for reelection? >> it doesn't.

>> what's your message to them, to those two-thirds of...? >> watch me. >> he has decided that he can beat trump. he has the experience of having done it once, and he's convinced he's gonna do it again. >> this is the cnn presidential debate. >> narrator: having decided to run again at age 81, joe biden would now have to prove he was up to the challenge. >> the stakes were very high, because he was losing, and he needed to turn the race around. and it was supposed to be his opportunity to showcase his forcefulness and his ability to take the fight to donald trump. now please welcome the 46th president of the united states, joe biden. >> how are you? >> as soon as he walked out, i thought... "this won't be good." he looked very pale.

he wasn't smiling the way i thought he would. >> making sure that we're able to make every single, solitary person, uh, e-eligible for what i've been able to do with the, uh, with the, covid, excuse me, with, um, dealing with everything we have to do with, uh-- look... if-- we finally beat medicare. >> president joe biden's poor performance, halting and stumbling at times... >> biden's debate performance was so bad that he managed to make donald trump actually look good. >> americans saw something that concerned them, that shocked them. but they also saw something that confirmed suspicions that they already had. he's an older candidate; no one's gonna deny that. >> that was an unmitigated disaster for president biden, from the second he walked out. >> based on that, in 18 weeks donald trump will be the president-elect.

>> people thought that his mental decline was very much more advanced than people had been able to see because of the way that he had been kept behind closed doors, kept on a teleprompter, kept on script. and so americans saw a politician who was not only having a bad night but was in the decline of his political career. >> a panic inside the democratic party right now. >> several op-eds calling for joe biden to bow out of the race. >> there's been some real damage done that cannot be undone. >> (crowd chanting): joe! joe! joe! joe! joe! >> folks, i don't walk as easy as i used to. i don't speak as smoothly as i used to. i don't deba-- debate as well as i used to. but i know what i do know: i know how to tell the truth! (crowd cheers) >> for as long as biden has been around, he's been contending with this question in one form or another:

does this man have the capacity to do it? and it's a version of the same question he was asked as a child when he was stuttering. is this guy smart enough? >> joe biden's life story, certainly as he narrates it, is one of adversity and resilience. ♪ ♪ he gets knocked down; he gets back up. whether it's being a child with a stutter who is mocked in school. whether it be the great tragedy of his young life when his wife and daughter are killed in a car accident. whether it be his political career when he flames out on two previous presidential campaigns. every single time, as he sees his life, he gets back up. >> (crowed chanting): joe! joe! joe! joe! joe! joe!

>> i know how to do this job! (crowd cheering) i know how to get things done! (crowd cheering) and i know like millions of americans know-- when you get knocked down, you get back up! (cheering and applause) ♪ ♪ >> narrator: but now the ultimate decision-- to go against the biden motto. stand down for good, and not get back up. >> there's a lot of fights that you can have in politics. but you can never win the fight against time. he was not going to be getting younger. his skills were not gonna magically return. he made this decision, and he ultimately came to understand that he was gonna be a one-term president. >> my fellow americans, it's been the privilege of my life

to serve this nation for over 50 years. nowhere else on earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in scranton, pennsylvania, claymont, delaware, one day sit behind the resolute desk in the oval office as president of the united states. but here i am. >> he knew that this is the end of a half century in public life, and that the very last decision he would make, in that sense, would be to surrender. >> i've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. i made my choice. now the choice is up to you, the american people. ♪ ♪ >> go to pbs.org/frontline to see extended interviews as part of our latest transparency project. >> this is what you look up to, what you aspire to.

>> there's a crisis of faith about his own destiny. >> he felt that he needed to be a healer. >> and to see all of our past reporting on president biden. connect with frontline on facebook, instagram, and xand stream anytime on the pbs app, youtube, or pbs.org/frontline. >> narrator: coming this fall... >> it is a stunning and historic development... >> ...this is a brand new presidential race... >> narrator: the choice, a frontline tradition for over 30 years. critics have declared it "richly detailed," "completely riveting," and "...perspective on events ...that don't succumb to news headlines." >> the choice 2024. >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you.

thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. additional support is prided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism... park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues... the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. more at at macfound.org. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler, and additional support from koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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