He disembarks from the plane, takes a couple steps and then he just stops, inexplicably for no reason, it seems like. And he just looks halting, unsteady, uncertain, and you saw the lowest point, in some ways, of his presidency.
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 race.
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. 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?
For Joe Biden, it was a pivotal moment in a lifetime marked by ambition, tragedy and determination. Those insecurities that are born out of the stutter, born out of the bullying, they're the diesel fuel that keeps pushing him forward. 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. When he was accused of plagiarism,, we felt that his character was being attacked, and it sort of took us back. You cannot understand Joe Biden without understanding everything that came before, which is an entire lifetime spent proving to people that he can do the things that they believe he cannot.
This is the Delaware story. It is an outstanding example of what free people in a free country can accomplish. The family moved to Wilmington when Biden was about And the neighborhood was this Irish Catholic, pretty much working class. My brother Joe is the eldest of all of us. We were normal kids—we raised hell, we got into trouble. But once we walked outside our home, we were Bidens, and 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.
