Keeping up with the Bidens: Everything you need to know about America's first family
Meet the Bidens. From the left: Melissa Cohen with husband Hunter Biden and their baby, Naomi Biden, President-elect Joe Biden, Dr. Jill Biden, Maisy Biden, Finnegan Biden, Robert Hunter Biden, Natalie Biden, Ashley Biden with husband Howard Krein. Picture: CNN.
Ahead of Joe Biden's Irish visit, we've rounded up the who's who of the entire Biden clan. From Beau Biden's friendship with Kamala Harris to the grandchild who went to college with one of the Trumps, find out all you need to know about the new first family.
The 78-year-old president started his career in politics aged just 29. He graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965 and Syracuse University School of Law three years later.
Biden was born in Pennsylvania in 1942 but moved to Delaware with his family at age 10 when his father struggled to find work. Joseph, or Joe as he was called at home, had a stutter as a child but overcame the impediment by reciting poetry.
He has three younger siblings: Valerie Biden Owens who has acted as his longtime advisor and former campaign manager, Frances ‘Frank’ Biden, a Florida real-estate developer who introduced Joe to his second wife, and James ‘Jim’ Biden, who has worked closely with Joe’s son Hunter in the past.
Biden served as a Senator for the state of Delaware from 1973 until his inauguration as Barack Obama’s Vice President in 2009. He has run for the presidency twice before, in 1988 when he was aged 44, and in 2008 against Obama. An issue with properly crediting speeches led to his dropping out of the 1988 Democratic race and he failed to gain sufficient support in the 2008 election.
He married his college sweetheart, Neilia, in 1966 and the pair had three children, Joseph ‘Beau’ Biden III in 1969, Robert ‘Hunter’ Biden in 1970 and Naomi Biden in 1971. Neilia and one-year-old Naomi died in a car accident in 1972, one week before Christmas and days after Biden was elected to the Senate.
Biden, then aged 30, skipped his swearing-in ceremony to be with his sons (aged three and two at the time) while they recovered from the car accident. He took his oath from their hospital bedside and chose to commute to Washington DC from Delaware so he could raise his children.
He experienced his own health issues in 1988 when he underwent surgery for two brain aneurysms and blood clots in his lungs. After seven months in recovery, he returned to work in the Senate.
As Senator, he acted as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, sponsored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, advocated for arms limitations with the Soviet Union, opposed the First Gulf War, and criticised the handling of the Iraq War.
Before the end of his vice-presidency, President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction for his work on behalf of the country.
Biden is the second Catholic to be elected President of the US along with John F. Kennedy and he has strong family links to two Irish counties.
Jill Biden (née Jacobs) was born in New Jersey in 1951 to a bank teller and stay-at-home mother who raised Jill and her four siblings. She studied English at the University of Delaware and married Bill Stevenson, whom she had met in high school, at age 20. The pair opened up and ran a successful pub before divorcing in 1975 after three years of marriage.
Following a gap year in college, she went on a blind date with Joe Biden, which was set up by his brother. After five engagement proposals, she married the senator in 1977. Their daughter Ashley was born in 1981.
The 69-year-old is a proud educator with a master's in education, another master's in English and a doctorate in education. While her husband was Vice President, the family lived at the Naval Observatory in Washington DC, where Kamala Harris and her husband are expected to take up residence.
Dr Biden was the first Second Lady to keep her full-time job while her husband served in the White House and is expected to continue breaking with tradition by working while she serves as First Lady from today.
They’ve come a long, long, way together. https://t.co/BKX9pdzQ9S pic.twitter.com/HPtBhuZD4W
— Naomi Biden (@NaomiBiden) November 7, 2020
During her husband’s vice presidency, she worked at Northern Virginia Community College as an English professor, known by her students as Dr B. She wanted to avoid being identified as Joe Biden’s wife and would ask her secret service detail to dress like students.
As Second Lady, she bonded with Michelle Obama, travelling and working with her on Joining Forces, their joint project that supports military families.
Dr Biden is the first wife of a sitting U.S. president to hold a paying job outside the White House, having resumed teaching at NOVA, at first on a remote basis over Zoom due to the pandemic before returning to in-person teaching in 2021.
Since her husband took office, Dr Biden has campaigned for free community college tuition and is an advocate for covid vaccination.
Jill and Joe Biden have one child together, Ashley, a 39-year-old philanthropist and social worker who is married to a doctor. She is a Tulane University graduate and has a master's in social work from the University of Pennsylvania. She has previously served as the executive director of the non-profit Delaware Center for Justice and also founded her own clothing company, Livelihood, in 2017.
Hunter Biden (50) is Joe Biden’s only surviving child from his marriage with Neilia. He was born in 1970 and graduated from Georgetown University in 1992 and Yale School of Law in 1996.
He has previously worked in banking and co-founded a federal lobbying firm that he resigned from when his father joined Barack Obama’s campaign ticket. He went on to help create a network of investment and consulting firms before joining the Navy Reserves in 1993. He was discharged one year later, reportedly due to addiction troubles.
President Trump has targeted the Bidens' only surviving son on the public stage since the campaign began. Most recently, Trump mocked his addiction struggles during a presidential debate even though Hunter had little public involvement with his father’s campaign.
Despite the rumours surrounding Hunter’s career and personal life, including a past relationship with his brother’s widow, the attorney’s father has always said that he is proud of his son and speaks with him every day.
“Joe Biden used to say this all the time, and he meant it: ‘Delaware can always get another senator, but the kids can’t get another father.’ His rule was that if one of his kids ever called, we were told to get Biden no matter where he was," Ted Kaufman, Joe Biden’s chief of staff told in 2009.
Hunter has three children, Naomi, Finnegan, and Maisy, with his ex-wife Kathleen, whom he divorced from in 2017 after 24 years of marriage. He also has a daughter who was born in August 2018 to Lunden Alexis Roberts, which was conformed via a DNA test conducted as part of a paternity suit filed in May 2019. Also in May 2019, he married Melissa Cohen, a South African filmmaker, within a week of first meeting her. They have one child.
Beau Biden was Joe and Neilia Biden’s oldest child. He was a rising star in the Democratic party before his death due to a brain tumour in 2015.
He was born in 1969 and attended the same school and colleges as his father, including Syracuse University College of Law.
After getting his law degree, Beau worked at the Department of Justice in Philadelphia and was elected as the Attorney General of Delaware in 2006. He served two terms as Attorney General and had been planning to run for governor before his death. He married his wife Hallie in 2002.
Beau joined the US military in 2003 as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard. While serving as Attorney General, he was deployed to Iraq, where he kept up his state duties and received a Bronze Star for service.
At the age of 42, Beau suffered a stroke and had a lesion removed from his brain three years later. In May 2015, the father of two passed away with his father and brother by his side. He was 46 years old.
Barack Obama gave the eulogy at the funeral where he quoted Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh.
The family, including Jill, Beau’s “second mother”, was deeply affected by his death. "Four days after Beau's funeral, I watched Joe shave and put on his suit. I saw him steel himself in the mirror, take a breath, put his shoulders back, and walk out into a world empty of our son,” Jill said.
Beau also worked closely with friend and colleague Kamala Harris while they were both attorney generals for their states. In her memoir, Harris described how at one time they spoke nearly every day. A mutual colleague called them both "instant rockstars", and Harris described in a previous speech how she got to know Joe through his son, whom she called a "dear friend", right up until his death.
The Bidens dote on their grandchildren and speak with them every day. Their eldest granddaughters were the first to tell their grandfather, whom they call ‘Pop’, that he had won the presidency and often post pictures of him online. They also called a family meeting to encourage him to run and appeared in numerous campaign videos to support their grandparents.
11.07.20 pic.twitter.com/HHVJMmIoAW
— Naomi Biden (@NaomiBiden) November 7, 2020
Naomi Biden (29), named after her late aunt, is Joe Biden’s oldest grandchild and Hunter Biden’s oldest child. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 with Donald Trump’s daughter Tiffany. She received her law degree from Columbia Law School, where her grandfather gave the keynote speech. She has created an online tool that helps people work out if they are eligible for CARES Act benefits with her boyfriend.
Anyone who wants to get to @JoeBiden, will have to get past us first 💪⚡️👊😜
— Naomi Biden (@NaomiBiden) October 22, 2020
We may not look intimidating, but remember, our Nana is @DrBiden... pic.twitter.com/6R1zlpmy9p
Finnegan Biden (23) is Naomi’s younger sister and was named after Joe Biden’s mother. The University of Pennsylvania student was often spotted on the campaign trail with her grandfather but keeps a relatively low profile.
Naomi and Finnegan’s sister, Maisy Biden (22), is the youngest of Hunter and Kathleen Biden’s children. Maisy also keeps a low profile but it’s known that one of her best friends in school was Sasha Obama, who she played basketball with. Maisy is a talented athlete and shared her high-school graduation party with Sasha and the Obama family.
Natalie is the eldest child of the late Beau Biden and his wife Hallie. The 18-year-old is close to her grandmother. "I would say she’s not your average grandmother,” she said in a campaign video. "She's a prankster, she's very mischievous.”
Beau and Hallie’s youngest child was born in 2006 and named after his uncle. The 17-year-old has been rarely pictured with his grandparents. He did join his sister and cousins in reciting the pledge of allegiance at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, however.
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸#DemConvention pic.twitter.com/BGfPVhvChf
— 2024 Democratic National Convention (@DemConvention) August 18, 2020
reported that Hunter welcomed a baby boy with his second wife Melissa Cohen in March 2020. The baby, pictured with his parents and the rest of the Biden clan in November and who was pictured at his grandfather's inauguration in 2021, was named 'Beau Biden' after his late uncle.
