Joe Biden considered resigning the vice presidency to help his dying son battle brain cancer. The revelation is buried in a New York Times story reporting that friends of the vice president are conflicted on whether he should challenge Clinton for the presidency.
“In a sign of the conflicting pressures surrounding Mr. Biden, the vice president has told people that the terminal brain cancer of Beau Biden, who died in May, had caused him to consider resigning the vice presidency to take care of his grieving family, though those aware of the vice president’s thinking say that idea never became too serious,” the Times reports.
Of course, as the Times says, the “idea never became too serious” and Biden never did hand in his letter of resignation to his boss, President Barack Obama.
Joseph Robinette “Beau” Biden III died May 30, 2015.
The younger Biden’s dying wish, Maureen Dowd reported over the weekend, was for his father to run for president.
As Dowd reported:
My kid’s dying, an anguished Joe Biden thought to himself, and he’s making sure I’m O.K.
“Dad, I know you don’t give a damn about money,” Beau told him, dismissing the idea that his father would take some sort of cushy job after the vice presidency to cash in.
Beau was losing his nouns and the right side of his face was partially paralyzed. But he had a mission: He tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.
Hunter also pushed his father, telling him, “Dad, it’s who you are.”
