Advertisement

Beau Biden, son of Vice President Joe Biden, dies of brain cancer

 
Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden pauses while speaking at a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington. On Saturday, Vice President Joe Biden announced the death of his son, Beau, from brain cancer. [Associated Press]
Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden pauses while speaking at a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington. On Saturday, Vice President Joe Biden announced the death of his son, Beau, from brain cancer. [Associated Press]
Published May 31, 2015

WASHINGTON — Joseph Robinette "Beau" Biden III, the son of Vice President Joe Biden and former state attorney general of Delaware, died Saturday after battling brain cancer for several years.

Biden, 46, the oldest son of the vice president and the rising star of a family dynasty, had been admitted recently to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington as he fought the cancer, a battle that his father largely kept private in the last weeks as his son clung to his life.

"The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words. We know that Beau's spirit will live on in all of us — especially through his brave wife, Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie and Hunter," Vice President Biden said in a statement that was released Saturday night.

President Barack Obama said he and the first lady were grieving alongside the Biden family.

"Michelle and I humbly pray for the good Lord to watch over Beau Biden, and to protect and comfort his family here on Earth," Obama said.

Beau Biden, a major in the Delaware Army National Guard's Judge Advocate General Corps, became one of his state's most popular public figures and had been considered the frontrunner for the 2016 race to become the state's next governor, but in August 2013 he checked into one of the world's most renowned cancer treatment centers, Texas Medical Center in Houston, to begin his fight with the disease.

Biden is survived by his wife, Hallie, and two children.

He became a national political star in 2008 after delivering a stirring introduction of his father at the Democratic National Convention in Denver the night Joe Biden accepted the nomination as vice president, and a little more than a month later Beau Biden deployed to Iraq and served there for one year — except for a trip home in January 2009 to see his father take the oath of office as vice president.

In recent weeks, the vice president's public schedule had declined as he regularly visited his son. Two weeks ago, during Yale University's graduation week, he delivered a deeply personal speech to thousands of students and parents who had no idea what the vice president was personally enduring.

He spoke of commuting from Washington every night to be with his sons after his wife and daughter were killed in an accident.

"The real reason I went home every night was that I needed my children more than they needed me," he said.