Democratic 2020 presidential front-runner Joe Biden continues to campaign with his self-described title of “Middle Class Joe,” but he has earned millions since leaving political office in 2016.
Biden and his wife Jill currently reside in a McLean, Virginia, mansion that is estimated to worth upwards of $6M by real estate website Zillow, according to the Washington Post.
The former vice president leases the home — a stone’s throw from CIA headquarters — with rent being estimated at $20,000 per month. The nearly 12,000-square-foot home, which is set back from a quiet, picturesque road, is gated, features a home theater, parking for 20 cars, and a fully equipped gym that includes a sauna.
President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig once owned the house, which is described on Zillow as “surrounded by Washington elite and standing high above the Potomac River” and “worthy of Washington’s most important hierarchy.” Haig’s desk is boasted as part of the home.
The palatial home, which is adorned with crystal chandeliers and boasts an enormous chef’s kitchen, is owned by investment banker Mark Eid, who lives next door to the Bidens in McLean. Eid is a known political booster who currently supports Democrats but has given to George W. Bush in the past.
In a Sotheby’s real estate video, agent Mark Thomas says that the property has “an incredible provenance firmly placed in the higher echelons of American political history” and exhibits “all of the architectural importance you would expect for a property situated in such a prime location surrounded by the Washington elite.”
He adds that “this property makes an imposing statement with parking for over 20 cars.”
McLean, one of the wealthiest communities in the United States, is home to several affluent political figures. Near neighbors of the Bidens include Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Throughout his 44 years in public office, former Vice President Joe Biden was in the lower end of the earning pool compared to other members of Congress, telling President Barack Obama at one point he might have to sell his Wilmington, Delaware, home.
Biden, 76, did not sell his home and since leaving the White House in 2017 has acquired more property and now occupies a much more comfortable earning bracket.
Tax returns from 2016, his last year as vice president, show that Biden and his wife Jill earned a combined $390,000. Other documents show that Biden was often in debt over the years with several extended lines of credit and borrowings against his Wilmington home.
In 2017, Biden signed a book deal worth a reported $8 million. He has also earned fees for speaking engagements, which his presidential campaign confirmed to the Washington Post, though they would say only that he had been paid for fewer than 50 engagements. Fees for some of the engagements were as high as $200,000. Since launching his presidential campaign, Biden has reportedly curtailed speaking engagements.
Biden has also established several organizations in his time away from office including the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware, the Biden Foundation, the Biden Cancer Initiative, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania.
His earnings from these organizations is not immediately known. Biden has vowed to release his 2017 and 2018 tax returns as part of his campaign but has not yet done so. He has also requested an extension to file a financial disclosure statement required by presidential candidates to July of this year. The statement was initially due in May.
In addition to living in the McLean mansion, Biden has also purchased a beach-side vacation home in Rehoboth, Delaware, for a reported $2.7 million in addition to maintaining his main lakeside residence in Wilmington.
Biden supposedly came up with the moniker of “Middle Class Joe” during an appearance at a labor conference in 2009 saying, “When we got sworn in, the president of the United States asked me to chair — you know, old middle-class Joe … If I heard one more thing about the scrappy kid from Scranton, Pennsylvania, and carrying a lunch bucket — I never carried a lunch bucket, but I guess I’m the middle-class guy. By the way, I’m proud of that. I’m proud of that.”
