Democrat Joseph Biden, who declared his victory in the US presidential election, is celebrating his 78th birthday today, Friday.
Biden’s advisers did not reveal how he will celebrate this occasion, while he has not yet obtained official recognition as an elected president from the Administration’s Office of Public Affairs, according to a report by Russian News Agency TASS.
Nevertheless, leading American media reports say that he won the support of more than 270 electoral delegates, whose votes were guaranteed to defeat the current President Donald Trump, who did not admit his loss.
Republicans raised throughout the election campaign the issue of Biden’s age, and 74-year-Trump called Biden the “Sleeping Joe”.
Such a long life is no exception for US politicians, as the 40th US President Ronald Reagan took office a few days before his 70th birthday. He left office shortly before his 78th birthday.
The thirty-fourth President Dwight Eisenhower and seventh President Andrew Jackson ended their residency in the White House at the age of seventy.
The forty-first President George W. Bush left the White House at the age of 68.
If Biden’s victory is officially confirmed, he will be 78 years and 61 days old at the time of his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States, scheduled for January 20, 2021, and thus become the oldest president in the country’s history.
Biden
The “New York Times” commented that Biden, with his 46 years of political experience and three attempts to win the presidency, “may embody that we, as educated people, can from time to time give priority to wisdom and experience.”
The Wall Street Journal said, “Biden is at his age, even if he slows down a little in his thinking, there is nothing to be ashamed of,” expressing at the same time its hope that Biden “will be able to” blow out the candles for many years to come on his birthdays without a need to hide his age.”
In this context, the newspaper pointed out that detailed data on his health was published at the end of last year, especially on high cholesterol levels, seasonal allergies and periodic heart rhythm disturbances. He underwent surgery in 1988 for a cerebral hemorrhage that was not repeated afterward.
It was reported that Biden does not drink alcohol, exercises five days a week and that doctors believe he can successfully fulfill his duties as president.
Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette Biden was born on November 20, 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to a Catholic family of Irish-English ancestry. He lived most of his life in Delaware where he studied at the University of Delaware and played for the university football team.
He obtained a law degree in 1968 from the state of New York, and between 1969-1972 he worked as a lawyer in the Office of the Public Defense Attorney in Wilmington, Delaware, and then established his own law firm.
In 1973, at the age of thirty, he became a Senator from Delaware and ranked sixth in the list of the youngest senators in US history.
He served in the Senate until 2009 and was one of the most influential legislators on the country’s foreign policy, and more than once chaired the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
From January 2009 to January 2017, he served as vice president in the administration of the forty-fourth US President Barack Obama.
