we have all witnessed throughout his presidency. >> i have known you a long time. he says things and tweets things you would never even think about four congress women of color, three of whom born in the united states telling them to go back where they came from and fix those countries. even though they were american citizens, three born here. can i go on and on. he hurts himself when he does those things, doesn't he? >> i understand how people think that. you need to eat. it's about better choices. sometimes i have a kale salad sometimes finish the brownies the kids eat. it all balances out. >> does it? racism is not brownies. white supremacy is not dessert. donald trump is not a private businessman or a reality television star anymore. he's president of the united states of americaf every move he makes is watched and analyzed. every tweet, every speech, every comment matters.

because words do matter. his words matter. and it will be those words and those deeds that will ultimately be the true legacy of president donald j. trump. he's gone from a young politician with swagger. >> they said we think you should run for the senate. i said, i'm not old enough. >> to a father suffering great loss. >> my brother looked at me -- >> he's an irishman with a life story that reads like a greek tragedy. >> how can you experience the worst thing imaginable twice in one lifetime?

>> his career has been long and often controversial. >> do you swear to tell the truth, nothing but the truth so swear you god? >> that has a new twist. >> a senator, a vice president, finally his party's nominee on his third try. >> character is on the ballot. compassion is on the ballot. >> tonight, do you see yourself as the polar option of donald trump? >> i hope so. >> a cnn special report, fight for the white house. joe biden's long journey. >> it's a good night and it's going to get better. >> more than 30 years after his first run for the presidency --

>> joe biden with the lead tonight and overall in the delegate race. >> on his third try for the white house. >> we are very much alive. >> it was the sweet super tuesday that joe biden had always dreamed of, setting a clear path to the nomination finally at age 77. >> it was like, okay. let's buckle up. we're going to go. >> but it was a really good feeling. it was glory. >> glorious and unusual to say the least. >> fact. no one has ever come in fourth in iowa and fifth in new hampshire and gone on to become the democratic presidential nominee. >> to do as poorly as he did in the first two contests. >> from where i come from, that's the opening bell. >> to a day he had super tuesday was lily unusual to defy the laws of politics. >> it's a day joseph robin biden

has looked for, for decades. >> how long has joe biden wanted to be president of the united states? especially met him in 1972, he was not ruling out the possibility. he was 29-years-old. >> there is the story of a non-holding up of a paper little joey wrote when he was 12-years-old saying he wanted to be president. >> if a nun said it, it has to be true. >> but the brass ring has some big strings attached. >> if he becomes president, he is likely to enher et a country facing the worst infectious disease crisis we've seen insurance 1919, the worst economic crisis since the depression, the worst racist crisis we've seen since 1968. it's a triple threat of crises all at once all combined. >> biden has described himself as a tran sishl candidate. >> we're going to speak to that now. >> but a triple threat could

require drastic urgent actions. >> the economy cannot survive if we don't get control of covid. that's going to be the thing that will affect every single thing that gets done. >> from the beginning, when he was just joey from scranton, pa, biden wanted to be the one to get things done. >> joe biden was always the lead dog. he had to be number one, he was in the number one position. >> a natural leader, his friends say. >> we always followed joe. >> and a natural talker. >> an old joke about joe, that if joe biden were standing next to an electric light pole, he'd strike up a foundation. >> his family was large, tight knit and irish catholic. >> a boisterous family constantly playing pranks on each other. >> with at least nine in this modest home. joey the eldest of four, then

valerie, jimmy and franky. the children's maternal grandparents lived there, too, along with an aunt, sometimes an uncle and their parents, joseph r. biden, sr. and katherine eugeneia finnegan biden. >> my mom was fierce in her commitment to family. she told us growing up, there is family and there with is family and there is family. >> i remember going to my mother once, i guess i was in 5th grade saying, mom, i love you more than anything. she said, joey, i know how much you love me. remember you are closer to your brother and sisters than you are to me. i said, how is that, mom? she said, you are the same blood. they are with you all the time. never forget that. >> mom said that we were a gift to one another and you know we believed her. >> let me ask you about your sister who has been incredibly supportive to you. what role has she played in your life? >> he's been my best friend and

on the handle bars of my bicycle in every sense. excuse me. sense she was 10-years-old, i never went a place i didn't take her, taught her how to play ball, did everything with her. >> to this day? >> to this day and all the way through. >> there are sayings we say for mom and dad, dad says it's not how many times you get knocked down, it's how quickly you get back up. dad was all about resilience. >> especially after losing his job when biden was young. >> they were forced to move away from their childhood home to find opportunity in swimmingtop. they had to redeem themselves there. it made him very close to his family. his family often has become much closer during adversity. >> faith helped too, family and faith were the book ends. we were an irish middle class household. our family values taking care of

one another, treating each other with respect, being resilient. those values coinvieded with the social katherine dock rin every day at school. there but for the grace of god go i. you are your brother's keeper. so it was a seamless way of life. >> a seamless way of life for a determined young joe biden. >> richard ben cramer writes about your brother as a child and he says, joey was always quick with a grace born of cocky self possession. he drng like some kids his age double think himself. once joey set his mind, it was like he didn't think at all. he just did. >> the more serious version of what he set his mand to dmind t. he stuttered terribly. he couldn't string more than three or four words together. he determined he was not going to be defined by stutter. >> teenage boys can be pretty

harsh. even cruel. he used to get thesed a lot. they would, hey, bbbb biden. they called him stutter head, hey stuff. >> so the summer before joe biden's junior year, poetry helped him lose his stutter. >> i would do poetry to say meek young men grow up in libraries. >> that was emerson. >> the reason i did it was to try to get a cadence to how you speak. when you are able to change the cadence of what you do and say, it seems how you are able to overcome it somehow. >> i think all of us were surprised in late august/september when we went back to school, he wasn't stuttering anymore. >> the high school was archmere academy. an elite catholic school he worked hard to attend, because he vowed it as a growthway to success. he was on the football team. >> he was a half back.

he made key plays in some of those games. >> off the neemd, friends remember a time he stood up for a buddy. it happened when he went to a diner with classmates including the only black kid in the class. >> the restaurant's policy that we don't serve they didn't use the word black at the time. he must have said ne gros. no, sit down, if they're not going to serve you, they're not going to serve any of us. this is 1961. before the civil rights act and before the voting rights act and before there was much sensitivity, i could say, at least for teen age boys, white boys about civil rights issues. >> biden says he learned about the reality of race relations here while lifeguarding in a black neighborhood in the early 1960s when delaware was very divided racially and culturally. >> polish neighborhood, irish neighborhood, the black neighborhood. >> he stood out but worked hard

to fit in. >> once you come into the neighborhood and somebody like you, you become like deep friends and stuff. that's how joe and i came. >> i was probably about 9 when i first met him. i was one of the omni kids in this pool. they called me dennis the menace. >> he would grow up to be dennis the mayor of wilmington. >> i generally saw an opportunity, the door was opened, he was going to get in and make friends and know this community and have this community trust him. i know joe had aspirations of going places. >> long before biden went into politics, he was already politicking and planning his surprising next moves. up next, success. >> i will never, ever, think anything is impossible again in my entire life. >> followed by tragedy. >> i remember looking up saying,

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a student at the university of delaware, still full of confidence but low on cash. when he and two buddies decided to head to ft. lauderdale for spring break. >> the first day we went on the beach and it was like 10,000 guys and 20 girls. the odds just did not look good for us. lo and behold a plane goes by saying round trips to nassau $28 bucks. joe, what do you think? got to go. let's go. >> they arrived to discover the college women on private hotel beaches, with i they couldn't afford. >> we found some hotel towels on the fence. we grabbed them and put them around our shoulders or waist and walked in luke we were standing there all along. >> they were there a few minutes when they spotted a woman they all wanted to meet. amelia hunter, a 21-year-old senior at sir a cues university. >> i said, let's flip a coin,

one potato, two potato, i'm looking at my hand, he takes off. he has a 50-yard dash on the both of us. by the time we get over there, he is chatting her up. >> not the god's truth, i knew i was going to marry her. i really did. the second night, i think i'm going to marry you. i think so. >> so we get on the plane, coming home, i'm in love, i'm going to sir a cues law school. >> just as planned, biden made it to syracuse law school and married amelia hunter a year later in the summer of 1966. after graduation he returned home with his wife to work at a law firm, national guardsmen were still patrolling the streets of wilmington in the wake of rioting the pham lfollo martin luther king's murder. >> it looked like a city under siege. >> you saw a country torn apart over race, a city literally on

fire. the national guard occupied wilmington, delaware longer than any city in america following king's assassination. it was in that moment a jung joe biden said, i can help. >> biden was a believer in his own believer of helping anyone to believe anything. no amount of ability would deliver a senate seat. he ran for county council, as usual, he enlisted his sister. >> so how did you get involved in the politics? >> he always picked me first. it was a natural thing to do. he was going into politic, i was going with him. we asked everybody we nau to help us and we asked ten people to help us. we knocked on every door. >> he won and then a year later, biden found his real opening while attending a political convention in delaware. >> i went back to the hotel, shaved for the evening. i got a knock on my door and in

walks four people and they said we got to talk to you, joe. i had a towel around me, i was shaving. they said, we think you should run for the senate. i said, oh, i'm not old enough. >> a judge in the group set him straight. >> he said, joe, you obviously didn't do well on constitutional law. it says you have to be 30 to be sworn in, not 30 to be elected. >> it was audacious, if not ar gant for wide on the run as a 29-year-old underdog candidate of change against a well-liked republican senator named kale boggs. >> what is your last name? >> he then governed the state two terms. he had been a member of congress for three terms and was running for his third term in the u.s. senate. kale boggs was loved. >> once again, biden asked valerie to run the show. >> i arm sayin-- i remember sayi

can't run that, i've 25, 26. he says, don't worry about it, we'll figure it out. >> she reached out to a party activist ted kauffman. >> i said so you are running on civil rights, on the environment, you are running on tax reform. those are really food issues. silence. i said, but i don't think you have a chance. >> you said what? >> i don't think you got a chance of winning. >> you don't have a chance, kale boggs is incredible. you have been at this for two years. you look like you're 25 years old. this is a race to run in order to make these issues that you care about. i say you do that but there is no chance of running. >> and his reaction was? >> just come and help me. we'll see. we'll see. >> biden was confident he could talk his way into voter's hearts. but what kauffman saw was bleak. >> on labor day we did a big

time poll. you know what the number was? 47% for boggs. 19% for biden. >> but it was also the first year 18-year-olds could vote and young voters saw a candidate who was promising that he understands what's happening today. 50 years later, this time as a political elder trying to connect with young voters, it's still his mantra. >> they had that funny feeling that kale boggs just his heart wasn't in it. he had been talked into running one more time by richard nixon. >> i want to talk to you for a few minutes, then drink your coffee and -- >> and then -- >> we with snuck up on him. boggs, this is the nixon landslide year. everybody expected to democrat too win. that was the truth. >> he won by a rousing 3100 votes. >> on election night, i remember it as it was yesterday. i stood on the floor and said i will never, ever, think anything is possible again in my entire

lif life. >> he turned 30 three weeks later. he and amelia already had a picture-perfect family. a baby naomi and two toddl boys. the quintessential young family was moving to the nation's alcohol /* capitol. >> we were the bright young hope of the democratic party. it was joyively. >> she was supposed to go with her husband to washington but decided to stay behind to buy a tree and christmas gifts. >> i went with joe to washington to interview staff. senator byrd told my brother offered joe to use his office, with which we did. >> then came the phone call. >> it was jimmy biden and i

picked up the phone, jimmy biden said, come home now, there is a terrible accident with amelia and the boys and the babies, all three. >> and you flew back and didn't -- >> we didn't say a word. i just, we just, it was a bumpy ride, i remember that, a tiny plane and i remember he was on my right and i just had my hand on his leg and we just, i mean, you know, you know. at visionworks we're going aboe and beyond to keep you safe.

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one week before christmas, 1972, joe biden and his sister travel to d.c. to hire staff. his wife amelia stayed in delaware with their three children to buy a tree. >> the memory i have at close visit is walking in the russell building with the echo of just our shoes. >> i remember looking up and

saying, god, i was so angry. i got a call from a first responder. they said, what happened? they said, there was a tractor-trailer and your wife and daughter are dead. >> amelia and the biden's baby naomi were killed when a truck hit their station wagon. >> my boys were very badly injured. they were hospitalized. hunter with a fractured skull and bo with literally, he was in a body cast, both arms, both legs. you had to pick him up and carry him this way. >> biden thought their bedside not the senate was where he ought to be. >> your brother is clearly considering not being sworn in. >> yeah. >> he doesn't want to be a

senator. he spoke to the government to have the governor replace him. >> but the senate majority leader mike mansfield changed biden's mind. >> he said your wife worked really hard to get elected. cared a great deal about it, gets sworn in and stays six months. >> if in six months or so there is a conflict between my being a good father and good senator, i promise you, i will contact the governor as i had earlier and tell him, we can always get another senator they can't get another father. >> they sent the secretary of the senate to the hospital to swear me in. so i couldn't change my mind. >> what have you done? >> congratulations, senator. >> thank you. >> the family and a few close friends were there. hunter holding on to bo's hand. it was heart breaking. >> the biden family was devastated. but they had to move on.

so valerie moved in. >> they were such a gift to me. the whole family was broken hearted and we just, you know, the big thing, take care of one another, not because it's your responsibility, but because it was a gift. >> and while valerie subbed in for mom, her brother also changed his plan. >> the reason that joe started to commute, he said, they've lost their mom and they lost their baby sister. i cannot take them away and lose mom mom and da da and uncle jimmy, franky, aunt vam so val, he will commute. after the accident, the bond was steel rods among the three of them. >> steel bonds with his boys and molten anger over the loss of his wife and baby. >> he says he went around kind

of looking for fights. >> i did. >> you wrote that you understand why people considered committing suicide. >> i thought what it would be like to go to dale memorial bridge and jump off and end it all. i never did it, never got close. what saved me was really my boys. >> on capitol hill, he found support he didn't expect from senate elders of both parties. >> these old bulls all took him in and helped buffer him from that grief, helped him carve a path towards real meaning and value and that experience. he saw their humanity before he saw their politics in many respects. >> biden's senate was a much less polarized place and in a 1974 interview, he recoiled at being pigeon holed by special interest groups as either liberal or conservative. his political connections were

always personal. >> he'll talk about a republican opponent in private with a great deal of empathy and compassion. >> those relationships were built by a series of just quiet moments sitting down next to someone without any particularly point to it. just to see how you are doing, what itself going on? >> he kept the personal close and over the years became the unofficial eulogizeer of the senate, even delivering a final tribute for a conservative republican segregationist. >> i tried to understand him. i learned from him and i watched him change oh so sudden will i. >> he delivered strom thurmon's eulogy, too? >> yep, at strom thurmon's request. i think when you can hold on to your own political beliefs and

have the respect of people whose political belief is totally different, that says something. >> over time, biden developed an almost posteral habit of consoling others. in public, on the campaign trail. >> someone who has been through it and says, i know how you feel. you kind of look and say, i guess i can make it. they made it. >> he did it privately, too. >> in the middle of his campaign for the presidency, my dad had passed away. joe was the first one to call. he's running for office. you can leave a voice mail. yeah. he's a good man. >> one evening i heard some crying and i went out to see what was going on. i heard the vice president's voice. and i heard him consoling somebody.

he was still in the west wing working and had bumped into a staffer who was giving a tour to a widow, who had recently lost her husband. he was walking down the hall and that was his instant reaction. >> people talk about your empathy and your pastoral nature when people are suffering. did that begin after the accident? >> i think it began in an ernest way from my stutter because it is the most humiliating thing in the world. for someone, how do you walk up to the girl to go to the 8th grade dance to go to tttt the. there are a bunch of chumps out there, that's how i learned how to fight. >> he found himself in a political struggle in the 1970s and early with 80s when he took a controversial stance against court-ordered bussing. >> i happen to be a person labeled civil rights but oppose

bussing. >> if you are a biden, that will be a tough issue for you. because that big empathy. that good heart. is this good for kids? is this the right way to get kids to get along to get parents to get along? is there another way? >> i will now direct this to vice president biden. >> that became fodder in the democratic debate, raised by his now running ma it. >> you worked with them to oppose bussing. there was a little girl in california who was a part of the second class to intgreat to public schools and she was bussed to school every day and that little girl was me. >> if you go back and look at the polls, back then, the vast majority of black people were against bussing. i was against bussing. >> you were? >> yes. >> the first real serious discussion i ever had with my wife was over bussing.

that is because i thought court-ordered bussing put too much of a burden on the students. i believe in neighborhood concept schools rather than being bussed and when i expressed that publicly, my wife took me to the wood shed in such a way that i would never forget it. >> while biden's political life was you the mutumultuous, back e was trying to get his personal life in order. >> everybody had somebody for me. they were very nice about it. >> by 1977, he had found someone he wanted to marry, jill jacobs. >> i had to ask her five times to marry me. five. five times. she would say, no, every time i asked her. >> i knew what the boys had been

through. they lost their mother and they lost their sister. i had to be 100% sure that this marriage would last until death do us part because i loved the boys so much that i thought they can't lose another mother through a divorce. >> two years later, they have ashley. she not only married joe, she married the boys, she married the biden family and she married the state of delaware. >> and she may have saved his life. >> i said, are what do you mean giving him last rites? he's not going to die.

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the great defender of delaware joseph r. biden. [ music playing ] >> by the mid-'80s, joe biden was a senator going places. >> how are you? >> he was young, he was dynamic. people said this is the next

kennedy. this is a guy who will be president of the united states some day. >> but was biden really ready? >> you know, it's a funny thing, i never said this about anybody, i wasn't sure how much he really wanted to run. >> was he conflicted? >> i think he was conflicted. it was a full-time commitment, joe really was joe who took the train home at night to be with his kids. you can't do that when you are running for president. >> what senator can resist the presidential lor? >> he didn't get up in '88 and say i'm running for president. so many people said, you got to think about this. you got to do it. >> and so amtrak joe moved onto the presidential track in a wide opened and competitive race, announcing his candidacy at the wilmington train station. >> as today i announce my candidacy for president of the united states of america.

>> just a few weeks after his announcement, some unexpected news took him on a detour. >> it was the surprise retirement this summer of a swing vote justice louis powell. >> biden was chairman of the senate judiciary committee and would leave the senate hearings. the crucial swing vote on the court key to major decision like roe versus wade. >> abortion along with other womens and civil rights issues are what many supreme court watchers say he will have a small opportunity to influence. >> president reagan took the opportunity to nominate an icon of the right. >> i today announce my intention to nominate the united states court of appeals judge robert . bork. >> we action was swift. >> the campaign was pushing to us come out against bork early. we knew if we did that, all we

would end up with with the 45 in the senate. so we wouldn't when. >> so biden found himself running two campaign, one against robert bork. another for president. they were pulling him in different directions. >> my name's joe biden. i'd like to be the democratic nominee for president of the united states of america. >> in iowa, an early caucus state that mattered most, biden was bunched with others near the top of the polls but his attention was split. >> there was a miss match between the expectation of joe and what was going on in the campaign. the sort of basics stuff wasn't getting done. >> but that was nothing compared to what unfolded next. >> live from the iowa state fairground in des moines, election '88. >> at the end of a key debate at the iowa state fair, biden used some of his stump speech, which

included quotes from british politician neil kinic. politically compelling but it wasn't biden's life and it was delivered without any attribution. >> why is it that joe biden -- >> what am i kinic in a thousand generations. >> the first in his family. >> to be at the university. >> ever to go to a university. >> i mean, he had given that speech 25, 30 times and in every case he had attributed it to kinic. he didn't plagiarize. >> i don't think anyone in the campaign saw it as a major thing when it happened. >> but it was, especially when a staffer from a michael dukakis campaign leaked it on the eve of the bork hearings. >> democratic vice president joe biden find himself on trial for political plagiarism. >> how did it feel? >> other than losing my family,

it was the worst thing that ever happened to him. >> the controversy fit the narrative biden was more show than substance all as the bork hearings began. >> i honestly believe, judge, i think i read everything that you have written. >> biden zeroed in on bork's controversial opinion like his critique of the supreme court's decision to strike down a state law banning contraceptives. >> does a state legislative body or any legislative body have a right to pass a law telling a married couple or anyone else, telling them they can or cannot use birth control? >> i don't know what rational the state would offer or what challenge the married couple would make. >> the problem is work is he would never admit there was a right to privacy under the constitution. >> biden may have been swaying public opinion on bork, but his own presidential campaign was

imploding with more charges. first there came reports he had lifted the phrases of other speakers without identifying them. then new charges at a student of law at syracuse university he used five pages from a published law review without quotation or attribution. >> i now i had one of two choices, leave the board and save my campaign if i could by going out and making my case and i thought that what, i don't want to go down in history as the guy who saved his political life let bork get on the court. >> so he was out. >> all of my energy and skill is required to deal with president reagan's effort to reshape the supreme court. i concluded that i will stop being a candidate for president of the united states. >> i can remember how devastated i felt and how devastated joe felt. i mean, no one had ever asailed

his character before. >> it was a big proceed to him. some people, they'd never come back from that sort of ending of a campaign. >> and lest i say something that might be somewhat sarcastic, i should go to bork hearings. >> he was about to go into the meeting room and i said, joe, you have to go in and win. have you as to win this one. >> if you look at the next paragraph of that talk. >> bork was pummelled by biden and others and left to fight largely on his own by president reagan. >> he thought he was smarter than biden and he was wrong. >> the yays are 42, the nays are 58. the nomination is not confirmed. >> four years before his death, bork told cnn quote as a whole biden wasn't fair.

>> the democrats, including biden, spent the time making the most skur lus charges about me. >> democrats praised biden, but others blamed him for permanently politicizing judicial confirmation. >> well, he presided over the inauguration of the politics of personal destruction in the judicial confirmation process. >> now the ideology of the judge is front and center. it's about how are you going to vote on these things. >> for some, bork became a new verb. a shorthand for getting railroaded on destroyed and remains to this day. >> it was just a good-old fashioned attempt at borking. >> what do you say it's all about his ideology? >> well, it was about his constitutional philosophy. which is totally legitimate. nothing i did went after bork's character or background. >> so biden left one fight and took another. his family sees this as a life

saver. >> maybe this is rationalization, his pulling out probably saved his life. >> reporter: right as the campaign would have been in full gear, biden collapsed after an event in new york. he >> he looked so gray, and i thought, oh, my god. >> my brother had an aneurism, and an aneurism didn't have any calculation as to whether joe was running or not running, aneurism was in his brain and erupted. >> there were two aneurisms, both extremely dangerous. >> there was a better than likely chance that i was not likely to make it through the first operation. >> the situation was so dire a priest came to give him the last rites but was interrupted. >> i ran into the room, the priest was at the bedside, and i

said "get out, because is he not going to die." and i think i shocked the priest, and he just ran out of the room. >> biden had two surgeries and a tough recovery. seven months later he returned to the senate and more controversy. >> do you swear to tell the whole truth? >> coming up, anita hill on a possible president biden. would you be willing to work with him? glass) at&t has nationwide 5g? yup! and that's faster? faster, yea! but is it reliable? ah huh and secure! you should consider making a big deal about it! bigger? i said bigger! oh, big-bigger deal bigger than what i'm doing? it's not complicated. a 5g network needs a 5g device. now everyone including existing customers can get a free samsung galaxy note20 after trade-in. so to breathe better, i started once-daily anoro.

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it was terrifying. >> do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> i do. >> it was really scary, because it was something that hadn't happened before, and the stakes were so high. >> at stake, a seat on the supreme court for clarence thomas. the man in charge? senate judiciary committee chairman, joe biden. >> i expected for joe biden to

have a fair hearing. joe biden's leadership was very weak. >> almost 30 years later, thomas sits on the supreme court. biden is the democratic nominee for president. and anita hill has made a decision. >> i think joe biden is the person who hshould be elected i november. >> so you're going to vote for joe biden? >> yes. >> would you be willing to work with him? >> my commitment is to finding solutions. i am more than willing to work with him. >> is it just about the fact that he's running against donald trump? or is it more about joe biden? >> actually, it's more about the survivors of gender violence. that's really what it's about. >> hill, now an attorney, is a professor of gender politics. she was 35 when she testified

before biden's committee. her testimony was graphic. >> he referred to the size of his own penis as being larger than normal. >> her motives dissected. >> do you have a model complex? >> no, i don't. >> and additional witnesses who may have corroborated her story were never called to publicly testify. >> the idea that anyone who was saying what i had to say was going to be heard, was just sort of out the window, because the republicans were in control, and joe biden lost control. >> some say you let the republicans take over. >> i don't think i did. but the point was, i wish i could have done it differently under the rules. there are certain rules you cannot call people out of order. i wish i could have done better

for her. the truth is, i believed her, and i believed he should not be on the court. >> sexual harassment is a serious matter, and in my view, any person guilty of this offense is unsuited to serve not only -- >> biden led the floor fight against thomas and lost. >> as a black american, as far as i'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching. >> thomas denied the allegations and his supporters still seethe about the hearing. >> with the allegation, he said if these come out in public i will be your biggest defender. quite the opposite. he repeatedly was saying one thing, talking out of one side of his mouth to one group and out of the other side to the other. he is someone who wants to please everyone. >> and even when hill received a call from biden earlier last year, she remained unsatisfied. >> what i heard on the phone

call was an apology that went something like "i'm very sorry if she felt she wasn't treated fairly." and, you know, an apology, to be real and sincere, has to take responsibility for harm. that was what i wanted to hear. that, if i had done better -- and this is joe biden speaking -- if i had done better, maybe there would be less harassment in the workplace today. >> but hill has watched the vice president talk more about the hearings on tv, and she says it's encouraging. >> she did not get a fair hearing. she did not get treated well. that's my responsibility. >> what it says to me is that maybe the next step is these are the things that i'm going to do to make it good. >> but the story of biden and

women's issues is not just about hill. when the thomas hearings ended. >> i was determined to do two things. one, make sure never again that there not be women on the committee. so that year i went out and campaigned for two women. dianne feinstein and carol moseley-braun on condition they join the judiciary committee if they got elected, and they did. and i was determined to continue and finish writing and passing the violence against women act. >> it was an idea born one year before the thomas hearings, to beef up protections for women, including a provision allowing them to sue their attackers in federal court. >> some in the legal academy who decided that women in the 1950s were basically making up rape, there were fancy lawyers, liberal and conservative, who would say, domestic violence is, you know, is as american as

apple pie. prominent, liberal lawyers. >> overall, the toll on wumomen health and lives are devastating. >> in 1983, my husband stabbed me 13 times and broke my neck while the police were on the scene. i nearly died, and i am permanently paralyzed. >> they all have the same story. >> and what was the story? >> i don't believe you. this doesn't happen. and they said they did not believe it was a crime. >> biden believed it was and spent four years pushing the bill. but it would ultimately take more than violence against women to get enough senators on board. so biden and president bill clinton, looking for a win, combined the issue with a comprehensive crime bill. >> at that time, there was a large amount of concern about

growing violent crime in the country. >> violent crime rates had been steadily rising for a decade, and there was political pressure to do something. >> democrats felt like they needed to show they were tough on crime. >> no, as a matter of fact, violent crime had risen exponentially, mainly because of the crack epidemic. >> was it a good political issue? >> no, it was more than that, it was a danger. >> his solution was a big bill. >> it was $30 billion. it had the assault on women in it, the drug courts in it. >> the bill passed with bipartisan support in 1994. but times have changed. had whi while biden worked with the police unions to write that bill, he's now promising to reform policing, and he wants to fix other parts of the measure that democrats charge led to

further mass incarcerations targeting communities of color. >> that phony rhetoric that got a lot of people elected but destroyed communities like mine. >> tough on crime meant tough on people who look like me. the core of the bill was to criminalize behavior that really should have been addressed through addiction services, through employment services. >> i will accept responsibility for what went right, but i'll also accept responsibility for what went wrong. >> biden says the obama administration worked to reduce the prison population and reduce mandatory minimum sentences, and i wants to do more. >> we have to change the prison system from one of punishment to rehabilitation. >> so is this political expediency or a true change of heart? >> we can have this debate, is did a true evolution or flip-flopping.

we really want the person to be believing in what they're doing. that's not what politicians do. the politics on this have changed. he's political enough to read the country at this moment and deliver on the changes that we want at this moment. >> with a career that spans more than five decades, biden has found himself apologizing and rethinking during this campaign. not only on the crime bill and not only to anita hill but to a group of women who said he made them uncomfortable by being too handsy. >> and the boundaries of presenting personal space have been reset, and i get it, i get it. i hear what they're saying. i understand it. and i'll be much more mindful. >> anita hill for one has decided to believe biden has changed. >> do you find some irony here that i'm going to vote for joe biden and that i might want to work with him. >> do i think it's ironic?

yes. but this is not just about me. it's not just about joe biden. it's about millions of people in this country and around the world that we can be a model for of the and i would love to be a part of that. and if it means voting for joe biden, so be it. >> i'll vote for this. >> up next, joe biden changes his mind. >> iraq vote was a mistake. i'm a performer. -always have been. -and always will be. never letting anything get in my way. not the doubts, distractions, or voice in my head. and certainly not arthritis.

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>> by the early 2000s, joe biden has one of the prime political perches in washington. >> chairman of the senate foreign relations committee is one of the best jobs you can have. >> even before he was chairman he spent decades traveling the globe, becoming a student of arms control and personally connecting. >> focus he brings to it is always how do i put myself in the other person's shoes? because if i'm asking for something that they can't possibly give, we're not going to get anywhere. >> he also delivered blunt talk. one example, he says, is what he

told milosevic in serbia in 1993. >> i pointed out that genocide was happening, genocide. i had a come to you-know-what meeting with milosevic in his office. >> and in 2008, to president karzai in afghanistan. >> we had a private dinner, karzai hosted it at the palace. during the dinner, karzai really kind of lit into the united states. biden looked at him and came down on the table with his hand like that. and he said this dinner's over. >> that's it? >> that was it. and he walked out. and, and so everybody's, well, i guess the dinner's over. >> that was 2008. and biden's clear signal to karzai was "shape up." back in 2001, after 9/11, biden

had backed karzai in building a new government and supported george bush's invasion into afghanistan. and a year later, biden also supported the bush administration when it turned toward a new target, iraq, looking to stomp out terrorism there. >> by seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and freeigrowing danger. >> these weapons must be dislodged from saddam hussein or saddam hussein must be dislodged from power. >> he didn't vote for war, he fought for diplomacy. he thought the best way was to get weapons inspectors back into iraq and bush went to war anyway. it's hard when you're giving an authorization of force. diplomacy is soft power.

so i don't buy that. >> there were no weapons of mass destruction. >> good to see you. >> joe biden and dick lugar and i were the first senators into baghdad, and after a couple years, it became clear to him that this was going nowhere. >> the iraq vote was a mistake. >> it's a vote that has dogged him for years from both sides. >> i did everything i could to prevent that war. joe saw it differently. >> why do you think he changed his mind on that vote? >> the same reason that hillary clinton changed her mind, the same reason that others did. if it had been a huge success, then nobody would be regretting their vote. >> can you explain to people when you would use force? >> yes, when there's a vital u.s. interest at stake or when we have a treaty obligation that we've committed. now conversely, i'm not going to send my kids or anybody else's

child to a place where our interests are not essential and where we cannot get it done. >> so the man who voted against the first iraq war in 1991 and then changed his mind about the second iraq war, deciding it was a disaster, ran for president in 2008 to end it. >> i wanted him to run. and the kids said, you know, dad has to run. and i felt that joe would be the only one who could end that war. >> are you running for president? >> i am running for president. i'm going to be joe biden. i'm going to try to be the best biden i can be. >> it wasn't enough. >> we made a giant miscalculation, and that is, once obama caught on, there wasn't room on the track for anybody except hillary and obama. >> they locked up a lot of money, a lot of support, and it wasn't just joe biden. >> we were doing so well. [ laughter ] >> collectively, i think we

had2%. >> but it wasn't just the competition that sidelined biden, although the competition was formidable. it was biden himself. even on day one, talking about barack obama. >> he's the first, sort of, mainstream african-american who is articulate and bright and clean and nice-looking guy. i mean, that's a storybook, man. >> yeah, it was unfortunate, because it was his announcement day, and he was simply trying to compliment senator obama. >> it didn't come off that way and was classic, careless biden, putting him into full damage-control mode right out of the gate. >> let me tell you something, i spoke to barak today. >> i bet you did. >> to this day, sometimes his words can be cringe worthy and

problematic. >> if you have a problem deciding whether to vote for me or trump, you aren't black. >> his critics say when you talk a lot that's bound to happen. does he talk all the time? >> yes, all the time. there is no ability to affect that. so you have to go with the flow. >> certainly, on the floor of the senate, he would go on for long, long periods of time. >> why is that such a steady critique of you. >> because probably i talk too much sometimes. >> after biden's short-lived presidential campaign collapsed, long-windedness took a back seat as obama considered him as a running mate. >> obama was coming with relatively little washington experience, here was joe biden with 36 years in the united states senate. >> and 36 years of being his own boss. >> he loved the senate and

everything about the senate. >> i was a fairly powerful senator, i thought i could help him more as chairman of the foreign relations committee. >> and he called me, and i said oh, my gosh, that's so good. he said i don't know. i said i'll call the kids, and w we'll talk about it. >> my mom said let me get this straight, the first black man of the united states wants you to run with him and you told him no, honey? >> game, set, match. it was like the hand of god. >> my friend, barack obama, the next president of the united states of america! >> from that moment on, biden was all in, as long as he could have weekly meetings with the president and serve as his chief adviser on all matters. >> biden said, i don't want a portfolio. all i want to know is that when you make the big decisions that i'm going to be in the room, and

obama joked, i want your advice, i want it in ten-minute increments, not 60-minute increments. >> for decades, he's brought change to washington, but washington hasn't changed him. >> so the man of senate, the two-time presidential also-ran finally became a winner, alongside a partner who was at the top of the ticket. >> this is a moment so many people have been waiting for. >> i want to thank my partner in this journey. a man who campaigned from his heart, the vice president-elect of the united states, joe biden.

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i, joseph biden solemnly swear -- >> he swore on the family bible

to defend the constitution. >> he was obama's top adviser without portfolio, but his job quickly began with one huge assignment, economic recovery. >> 2.6 million jobs lost in 2008, the largest one-year drop. >> the economy was going straight down! >> the obama administration proposed a massive stimulus bill, massive at least by 2009 standards. biden's job, corral the senate republicans needed to get it done. >> the recovery act passed the house on a streaight party-line vote. and it needed three republican votes to get it passed and it fell into joe biden's lap to go on capitol hill and persuade the three republicans to get to 60 votes right on the nose. >> on behalf of the country and its people, mr. president, let me presume to say, thank you, we

owe you a great deal. >> so just four weeks after the inauguration, the administration pumped $787 billion into a teetering economy. it was risky business. with some democrats complaining it wasn't enough and republicans arguing it was too large. >> we have no assurance that it will create jobs or revive the economy. in short, we're taking an enormous risk. an enormous risk with other people's money. >> the president of the united states! [cheers and applause] >> i'd ask vice president biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight ifr oversight effort, because nobody messes with joe. >> to implement the stimulus, it had to be free of any problem. scandal. and it had to be fast and furious. so you had to move unbelievably fast but no problems and no slipups. >> over the next seven years,

the economy grew, though relatively slowly. unemployment dropped by half, and millions of jobs were added. >> good morning, folks, how are you. >> the following year, biden was on the hill again, this time to help find the votes for the affordable care act. >> the patient protection and affordable care act is passed. >> his role in obamacare was principally as an arm twister. >> but in the end, biden may be remembered as much for what he whispered to his boss when the legislation passed. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states of america, barack obama. [cheers and applause] >> this is a big [ bleep ] deal. >> thank you. >> and then there was the time biden jumped the gun on the president, announcing his own support for gay marriage on a sunday show. >> i am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and

heterosexuals are entitled to the same, exact rights. >> but biden's utility went beyond domestic policy, as obama tasked him to handle assignments in afghanistan and also iraq, where the administration had promised to end the war. >> during the transition, president-elect obama said why don't you go to iraq and afghanistan in january to get the freshest possible information to inform our review. >> so, that's what they did. biden returned from the trip, believing afghanistan was a complete mess and told the president. >> there was not unity of mission, unity of purpose, and he said, mr. president, the first thing we need to do is make sure that we have a clear set of objectives and a clear strategy and that everyone agrees on it. >> one point of agreement was that the first order of business was sending 25,000 additional troops to afghanistan, to ensure

the country's upcoming elections would be fair. but then came a request for even more troops. >> based on an assessment by the new commander in afghanistan, stan mcchrystal, he came back to washington and asked for an additional 40,000 u.s. troops. >> the military brass were on board, but not biden, who never stopped raising questions and clearly got on their nerves. >> you had gates, mullen, pa tr patreyus, hillary clinton saying stop, we have to rethink this. >> i think he was saying slow down. there's no rush to judgment here. >> so the vice president would lay as he would like to say, the skunk at the picnic. he would be the bad cop. he would be the one pressing the military, why do you need that many resources? i don't believe that. explain that.

>> i would be the one taking them on. the president was new, they knew he at any time have foreign policy experience, and if they went after him and it was a mistake, it would be a very costly mistake. >> and it became total complicit with president obama. they would confer before the meetings. and the president would say, joe, be great if you pushed on this or focussed on this or prodded on that. that allowed the president to kind of not show his cards, to sit back, to hear everyone out. >> the debates inside the situation room grew more and more tense, especially with the military brass. >> there's always an attitude that, you know, we're the ones who put our lives on the line. we are the military experts. we expect that, you know, when we make a recommendation that you'll, you'll give deference to those that have military experience. and the vice president is not one to do that. that's why some have been critical of joe biden.

>> one source of the tension was biden's notion of a much smaller presence aimed directly at the terrorists. >> fundamentally, the reason we're in afghanistan in 2009 and frankly today, ten years later, has to do with al qaeda and terrorists that can reach out of afghanistan to strike us or our allies. so he was laser focussed on the terrorism problem. >> and how many boots on the ground would that have required? >> i think it was more along the lines lines 10,000 or 15,000 in that range. >> biden lost the fight, the president committed 30,000 troops and told the brass to get the additional 10,000 from allies. former defense secretary robert gates, who declined to be interviewed for this profile, wrote this about biden in his memoir. quote, i think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign

policy and national security issue over the past four decades. but when asked about that quote this summer, gates chose to steer the conversation to his assessment of biden's character over their policy disputes. >> i have a lot of policy disagreements, frankly, with the former vice president. but i think one of the things that people will be weighing this fall is probably the character of the two contestants. >> good afternoon, folks. >> in 2010, biden was still looking for a way to end the iraq war. >> barak and i, who did he turn to, to end the war? me. we are committed to building an enduring partnership between iraq and the united states. >> biden's goal? convince iraqi prime minister that the u.s. be allowed to leave a small military presence behind, but al-maliki refused.

>> he didn't push hard at all. >> they say they did, that they pushed and pushed and pushed. >> no. they did not push with any conviction. president obama ran on ending wars. they didn't push hard. because what they wanted to do was skedaddle. and skedaddle they did. >> your dream of an independent and sovereign iraq is now a reality. >> in december 2011, the obama administration stuck to a schedule agreed to by president bush and with drew. >> ultimately, we did leave a vacuum there, and ultimately, we paid a price for that. >> in iraq right now, militant isis fighters are less than 40 miles away from the capital of baghdad. >> and that ultimately forced the united states to go back in to iraq in order to make sure that they didn't take over the

entire country. >> so u.s. troops returned to fill the vacuum, temporarily. but the controversy over the growth of isis still remains. up next, the biden who returned from iraq to face another battle. >> they say 1% of, of people survive, and we kept thinking why, why can't he be the 1%? look at that scuffed up wall. staring at you. embarrassing you in front of your in-laws. spreading rumors about you at work. that wall is your everest - but not any more. today let's paint. that wall never knew what hit it. today let's paint. behr. exclusively at the home depot.

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joining us from wilmington, delaware is vice president 1y50ijoe biden. >> it was a monday in may until it wasn't. >> criticism coming about the choice of elena kagan to be the next supreme court justice. >> i'll never forget it. the vice president had gone home for the weekend, and he was doing tv to support the president's nomination to the supreme court. >> we're joined now by vice president joe biden. >> we got back to the vice president's house, and suddenly,

there was this commotion behind us, and fran person, who was the president's aide, body aide, stuck his head in the window and said bo's down. something's happened. >> bo's down? >> bo's down. the motorcade bolted behind us and took off. >> the vice president rushed to the hospital where his eldest son, 41-year-old bo, had been taken. >> nobody knew at that point whether he was alive, what happened? as the day progressed, the diagnosis was a stroke. i remember a moment in the hospital waiting room looking at the vice president and jill biden sitting together, holding hands, with just unbelievable anxiety and grief on their face and thinking, this is so unfair. that this would be happening to him, after what he's been through. gradually, the news got better that day, and the stroke, what they thought was a stroke resolved itself.

>> it appeared resolved a week later when bo left the hospital. but it wasn't. the real problem would be hidden for three more years. >> can you describe biden's relationship with bo? >> incredibly close. he was more than just father/son. they were almost alter egos. >> you could just see the love and the pride. all quiet and unspoken between them. he was such a humble, decent person, bo was. >> the natural person to introduce his father to the nation in 2008. >> please join me in welcoming my friend, my father, my hero, the next vice president of the united states. joe biden. [cheers and applause] >> bo served in iraq with the

national guard. >> the attorney general of the state of delaware bo biden. >> contemplating a run for governor. he was bound for bigger things, and not just because of his last name. >> and i thank you from the bottom of my heart for being there for me. >> he was the heir apparent, but there was no question he could earn it himself. >> he was an incredible natural, right? who you just had to get out of the way and let him shine. >> i knew he would follow in his father's footsteps. i mean, he loved politics, even as a little boy. >> did you think he was going to run for president some day? >> oh, absolutely, absolutely, yeah. >> by 2013, bo biden was married with two young children. >> and then he had this incident while he was traveling with his family. and ends up at the doctor's office, and it was after that initial visit with the doctor that we heard from the vice

president that he needed to see a specialist at md anderson in houston. >> md anderson, a top cancer hospital. >> do you remember when biden called you? >> yes. i do. >> you could tell from his voice that they have had a very challenging conversation with the doctor. >> the diagnosis was deadly. glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. the chances for long-term survival near zero. >> it was hard. i mean, it was hard. we just kept hope that he was going to make it. you know, they say 1% of people survive. and we kept thinking, why can't he be the 1%? after the work day, i would head to walter reed hospital, joe would head to walter reed.

he would be there till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. and then he would come home, you know, grab a couple hours of sleep, or fall asleep, you know, at bo's bedside and then shower and start the next day. >> i said to him, i find it remarkable how you're able to deal with this. he said, you know, the reality is i've dealt with this before. i know how this story unfolds. >> friends and family say during this time he leaned heavily on his faith. >> i'd see him in meetings fingering his rosary beads. i knew he was praying for him. joe, on occasion, would come in to st. ann's or st. patrick's. he'd come in after mass had started and just slip in the back with his detail. and be there. and then he'd leave before it ended so he didn't, you know,

disrupt everything, but i remember looking back and sort of stealing a glance at one point. and he was praying. >> biden also got support from his boss. >> the only person i told about how bad off bo was, and he kept the confidence, was barak. >> for years, the president and vice president had a weekly lunch appointment, and when bo got sick, the struggle became their shared conversation. >> did they become closer? >> they absolutely became closer. as people do, right? when they experience great life events together. >> so close that when the vice president mentioned he might sell his home to help his son, the president made a stunning offer. >> i said, if bo resigns, there's nothing to fall back on, his salary, but i said i worked it out. jill and i will sell the house,

we'll be in good shape. when he got up, he said don't sell that house, promise me, you won't sell that house. he's going to be mad at me for saying this, he said, i'll give you the money. >> while the vice president tried to help the son, the son tried to help his father. >> i absolutely believe and will believe did until the day i die, that the thing bo was most afraid of was not dying. what he was most afraid of was the impact it would have on his dad. that would really take his dad out. >> did he tell you that? >> oh, yeah. oh, yeah. all the time. >> it's something the vice president wrote about in 2017 in his book "promise me, dad." >> bo just made me promise. this was just before he died. he said, dad, you got to promise me you're going to be okay. he said dad, look at me, look me in the eye, dad, give me your word as a biden, dad, you'll be okay. >> are you okay? >> i am, because it is still

emotional. but i knew what he meant. he was worried i'd walk away from everything i'd worked my whole life, the things i cared about. he knew i'd take care of the family. he never worried about that, but he didn't want me walking away. >> forward. march. >> bo biden died on may 30, 2015. he was 46 years old. >> bo biden was an original. he was a good man. a man of character. a man who loved deeply and was loved in return. >> is it true you keep bo's rosary with you? >> got it in my pocket. >> all the time? >> i keep it all the time.

he had it when he passed away. it was more gold. you can see it's worn. >> mm-hm. >> that was the spring of 2015. and, as ever in joe biden's life, another political deadline loomed. would he run for president again in 2016? >> we had a talk. he just kind of wanted, you know, do you think i should run for president? it inevitably turned into a talk about bo, you know, how would he get through it and how would he do it and how would it happen without him? >> so, when you left that meeting, did you think he was going to run? >> i thought he was going to really, really wrestle with it, but i felt that he was not yet in a place where there was a floor. there was a moment where we started talking, and you could just see there was no bottom. there was just this hole. >> the decision wasn't just about bo. it was getting late in the race

for the democratic nomination. hillary clinton had already captured key support and big money. >> thank you all very much. >> have you made your decision yet? >> can't hear you. >> have you made your decision yet! >> and, as biden wrote in his 2017 memoir, obama's political team thought the race wasn't winnable, and obama hum seimsel wasn't encouraging, and so -- >> as my family and i have worked through the grieving process, i've said all along that it may very well be that that process, by the time we get through it, closes the window on mounting a realistic campaign for president. i've concluded it has closed. thank you all very much. >> joe biden was 73 years old, and it seemed that the presidency was out of reach for

good. did he think it was over then? the notion of running for president? >> yeah, oh, yeah. >> 2016? >> yeah. >> then the president gave biden another job. >> last year, vice president biden said that when the new moon shot, america can cure cancer. >> obama gave biden his moon shot. >> so, tonight i'm announcing a new national effort to get it done. and because he's gone to the mat for all of us on so many issues over the past 40 years, i'm putting joe in charge of mission control. >> and then, this. >> i am pleased to award our nation's highest civilian medal, the presidential medal of freedom. >> with nearly 50 year of public service under his belt and the nation's highest civilian honor around his neck, joe biden thought his time in washington

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thank you very much, everybody. >> as the curtain dropped on the obama administration -- >> joe biden was beloved by everyone in this chamber, even those he drove crazy from time to time. >> republican senators who didn't want to talk with us about joe biden heaped praise on him. >> i do trust him, implicitly. he doesn't break his word. he doesn't waste time telling me why i'm wrong. he gets down to brass tacks, and he keeps in sight the stakes. >> a retirement party senate style, where the compliments flowed freely, because biden

would never run again. even biden believed it. >> then along came charlesville. >> you will not replace us! >> reporter: these people coming out of the field with torches and contorted face, their veins bulging, spewing hate. >> but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. >> he said there were fine people on both sides. and i thought god. >> so he wouldn't be running if it weren't for donald trump? >> absolutely not. jill and i would have tripped him. >> that's why today i'm announcing my candidacy for president of the united states. >> it was april 2019 and joe biden, then age 76, had come full circle. from one of the youngest men ever elected to the senate, now seeking to become the oldest person to take the presidential oath. donald trump clearly saw biden as a threat, so much so that he

was impeached by the house. >> article 2 is adopted. over a phone call he had with the ukrainian president asking him to investigate biden and his son hunter. >> what biden did was a disgrace. what his son did is a disgrace. >> at issue is hunter biden's five-year stint on the board of a ukrainian energy company, burisma, which began while his father was vice president. >> biden and his son are stone-cold crooked. >> president trump claimed joe biden used his considerable influence to force out a ukrainian prosecutor whom trump says was investigating hunter. >> he said is that he wouldn't give -- i think it was billions of dollars to ukraine unless they fired the prosecutor who was looking at his son -- >> there is zero evidence that this is true. biden did want the prosecutor fired, but that's because he was widely viewed as corrupt, and

biden was leading an anti-corruption campaign backed by the u.s. and western allies. >> there was this ongoing relationship between hunter biden and the board and joe biden and the country of ukraine. and there are those who would say that in itself is a conflict of interest. you shouldn't do that. >> last year hunter biden told abc news he made a mistake. >> did i make a mistake, maybe in the grand scheme of things, yeah. but did i make a mistake based on some unethical lapse, absolutely not. >> do you ever think you should have just told hunter to get off the board, even if it was only a matter of optics? >> optically, had i known earlier, i wish, you know -- we both wish it hadn't happened that way. but the fact is all the people that testified under oath in the impeachment hearing acknowledge that there wasn't a single thing biden did, either one that was illegal, inappropriate. there is no evidence of that. but it would have been easier. it would have been a lot easier.

>> the attacks clearly got under biden's skin. >> you're selling access to the president just like he was. >> a damn liar, man. that's not true. and no one has ever said that. >> and ethical questions continued to be raised by republicans. >> there is no way as a vice president that i would let my son do that. no way. i mean, and i would make a point to make sure that it didn't happen, because i just think that that's wrong. >> thank you, thank you, thank you. >> by february, democrats were heading to the polls, and biden's fate was up to the voters. >> this 15.6 is a disappointment for biden, currently running fourth. >> fourth in iowa, fifth in new hampshire. soon came south carolina. and did you think that it was looking pretty bleak? >> yeah. i thought that. . >> and so just days before the primary, influential congressman jim clyburn, hoping to give biden a boost, endorsed him. >> i want the public to know

that i'm voting for joe biden. south carolinians should be voting for joe biden. >> it worked big-time. >> sweeping blowout win for the former vice president joe biden. 46 counties in south carolina. 46 county victories for joe biden. >> my buddy jim clyburn, you brought me back! >> won by 29 points and he wouldn't have done it without you. >> a man of enormous integrity. >> there is no doubt about that. >> well, some people say that. >> the decisive results in south carolina quickly collapsed the democratic field. >> they don't call it super tuesday for nothing. so biden, who started the race as the front-runner, was back at the top of the heap and the world. but the next week, covid forced him and everyone else down to earth and back inside their homes for months. >> travel restricted, schools

shuttered, sports seasons totally canceled. >> millions of jobs were lost. the death toll mounted. >> black lives matter! black lives matter! >> then came racial tensions after the death of george floyd at the hands of minneapolis police. >> i know what it means to have that black hole in your chest where you're breath is being sucked into it. >> empathy is joe biden's super power, and he applies it to everything. and i think he fully intends to apply it to the country and to the challenges that we're facing right now. >> as biden continued to rise in the poll, trump's attacks dug deeper, taking on his opponent's acute and age. >> they're going to put him into a home and other people are going to be running the country. >> trump and biden are contemporaries, both born in the 1940s, and biden is less than four years older thanrump.

>> look, he's almost -- he is approaching 80 years of age. i don't know of anybody that hasn't lost a step when you're approaching your 80th year. you do. and he has. >> i think it's ridiculous. i mean, if you follow joe on the campaign trail, i mean, he is usually the last one to leave a rally or a rope line. and then when he comes home, he is on the phone. he is doing briefings. >> compare him to the alternative. when i saw the current president coming down the steps the other day, he has lost a few steps. >> what do you say to people who watch you on tv and say he is not the old biden i knew, and he has lost a step after all these years. and it worries me. what do you say to those folks? >> watch me. i say watch me. >> good evening. >> more than 21 million people watched joe biden accept the democratic nomination. >> so it's a great honor and humility, i accept this nomination for president of the

united states of america. >> with his historic running mate kamala harris by his side, biden saw a ticket that looked like the future. republicans were quick to paint harris as part of the left wing, pulling her silver-haired elder in that direction, drawing a caricature of biden as an empty vessel captured by radicals. >> he is a trojan horse with bernie, aoc, pelosi, black lives matter, and it's parties entire left wing. >> biden is a trojan horse for socialism. >> at his convention, biden saw himself as the man to lead the way out of the pandemic by believing in science and understanding the pain it has caused. >> and how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes. >> and he made the case for a resilient america moored by hope and decency. >> the calls for hope and light

and love. hope for our future. light to see our way forward, and love for one another. >> two conventions, two alternate universes, two very different men. >> are joe biden and donald trump polar opposites? >> 100%. joe biden in character and in policies is the polar opposite of donald trump. >> and is that a good thing in this election? >> 120% yes. and i think i'm shaving 10 or 15% off. it could be 150%. >> polar opposites. >> joe doesn't read his compassion off a teleprompter. >> do you see yourself as the polar opposite of donald trump? >> i hope so. ♪