Former Vice President Joe Biden’s memoir, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose,” will be in bookstores this week.
The book reveals details about his life, both personal and political, including his perspective that Hillary Clinton did not only seem unhappy about her presidential bid but that she was somehow not in control of her destiny.
DelwareOnline previewed the book, including a meeting between Biden and Clinton where she asked him if he was going to throw his hat into the presidential ring. That portion of the book preview is entitled “Hillary Not Happy.”
“As I walked her to the front door on the way out, I was pretty sure Hillary hadn’t gotten all she had come for that morning,” Biden wrote about telling Clinton that he hadn’t decided given his grief over his son Beau’s losing battle with brain cancer:
I felt a little twinge of sadness for Hillary as I watched her walk down the steps that morning. She did not evince much joy at the prospect of running.
I may have misread her entirely that morning, but she seemed to me like a person propelled by forces not entirely of her own making. And I had absolutely no doubt she understood how brutal the campaign would be for her. What she was about to do took real courage.
Biden, the book preview reveals, decided not to run for president in the end because of the death of his son, who was 46 when he died
“Time had run out,” Biden wrote. “The grieving process, I said, doesn’t respect or much care about things like filing deadlines or debates and primaries and caucuses.”
“And I was still grieving,” Biden wrote, adding that, ”We all knew that, more than anything, Beau did not want to be the reason I did not run.”
Biden also addresses former President Barack Obama’s role in his decision not to run for office.
Biden writes, “In January 2015, the president was convinced I could not beat Hillary.”
And then concludes, “The president was not encouraging.”
And, according to Biden, at the same time, Obama had his back.
“I’m very protective of your legacy,” Obama said. “I really mean it.”
Biden also has harsh words for Politico and its “sickening” reporting about how he wanted to use his son’s death to gain support should he decide to run.
“The idea that I would use my son’s death to political advantage was sickening,” Biden wrote. “I didn’t think anybody would believe the charge, but I could feel my anger rise.”
“And I understood the danger of that, especially in my present emotional state,” Biden wrote.
“If this thing about Beau came up somewhere in my hearing, I was afraid I would not be able to control my rage,” Biden wrote. “And I would say or do something I would regret.”