Joe Biden Living Style in a White House Washington DC
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00:00The Architectural Digest, welcome to the Oval Office, come on in.
00:17This is the White House, this is it.
00:20On Inauguration Day, the outgoing president has to be out by, I think, noon or ten o'clock
00:25in the morning.
00:26Incoming can't come in until four o'clock, so you can decide what furniture and what
00:30decorations you want in the Oval Office.
00:32I had asked my brother to help me set up my office in here on the rug and the furniture
00:38because he's a better architect than I am.
00:40What they do is, in suburban Maryland, there is a facility that is a replica in terms of
00:47dimensions of the Oval Office.
00:49And so you go out there and pick the furniture and the rugs you want, see what it looks like.
00:54And so my brother knows my taste extremely well.
00:58I love this rug, I love the color blue, that's the one thing I knew I wanted.
01:02The rest, my brother picked out for me.
01:05And he had called a good friend, John Meacham, the presidential historian, for some help.
01:13I've spent more time with the Chinese leader than any other head of state.
01:17And he asked me, he said, can I define America?
01:19I said, yes I can, in one word, and I mean it, possibilities.
01:24We Americans think anything is possible when we do it together.
01:28And that's why John Meacham helped my brother pick out those five portraits up there.
01:33It's all about possibilities.
01:35There's not a single thing we can't do.
01:40This was the Resolute Desk that John Kennedy had.
01:44And remember that famous picture where John John, his son, where he came out from under the desk?
01:50Well, he comes out this door here.
01:53That's where he climbed out.
01:55Well, I have a little grandson, and what I decided to do when we came in here, here let me show you.
02:02And that's my grandson.
02:04Bowie coming out from underneath the desk.
02:06It's really an incredible office.
02:08I chose the things that sort of represent why I got into public life to begin with, for real.
02:15I wanted to be able to sit at my desk, but I looked down to see the two heroes I had.
02:20One was Dr. Martin Luther King, and the other is Bobby Kennedy.
02:24Then I have a woman who refused to move to the back of the bus, Rosa Parks.
02:29I have her bused in here as well.
02:31And there's one other person that was from that era.
02:34This is Cesar Chavez of the farm workers.
02:38He was organizing farm workers in the southern part of my state at the time, and I supported him.
02:43I never met him, but I supported what he was doing.
02:46It cost me in southern Delaware, but I admired the hell out of him.
02:54This is the love of my life and the life of my love.
02:56This is my daughter Ashley on her wedding day, and we're dancing the dance of father and daughter.
03:02This one is really amazing.
03:05This is on the night Barack and I were declared vice president and president of the United States.
03:11My mom, who admired Barack a lot, wasn't even supposed to be walking out on the stage.
03:15And I said, and now the next president and vice president of the United States, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
03:21And my mother grabs Barack's hand there and look a look in his face.
03:24She goes, come on, honey, it's going to be okay.
03:26She walked him out on stage.
03:28She never stopped being everybody's mom.
03:31I have this rugby ball over here.
03:33This is the all Irish rugby team.
03:35I have two cousins who were stars on that team.
03:39And they gave me this ball.
03:41And then every time I've been sworn in any public office, I've used this Bible.
03:46It's just an incredible keepsake that's been around in the family for a long time.
03:52By the way, the reason for Ben Franklin, I got to put that up because my kids went to Penn and I was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
04:00This moon rock, it's pretty cool.
04:03It's literally a rock from the moon.
04:06This is my 67 Corvette.
04:09My dad didn't have a lot of money, but he managed the dealership.
04:12So when I got married, he gave this to me as a gift.
04:16I still have it.
04:17When I got elected president, Scranton decided to take Interstate 81 and the exit to Scranton used to be called the Central Scranton Expressway.
04:29They renamed it President Biden Expressway.
04:36You know, there's a lot of other things in here that are consequence to me.
04:41And I think of all the incredible things that have happened in this office over the last couple hundred years.
04:47And it really is just an incredible honor to be here.
04:55Let me show you back here.
04:57People don't get to go back here very often.
05:00I think these are great sketches of Frederick Douglass.
05:03I have them put up on the wall here.
05:05There's a private office back here.
05:07This is where I come when I want to get away a little bit to work on a speech.
05:12There's a great portrait of President Kennedy there.
05:15The Kennedy's didn't like it because it made him look too contemplative.
05:18I think it's a great portrait of him.
05:20And on the wall here, a lot of kids will send me these cartoons.
05:24And I put them up on the wall.
05:26And then I take pictures of them and send them to the families, which the kids get a kick out of.
05:31I think they're really neat.
05:33And this is the house I was raised in, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on North Washington Avenue.
05:39Which, by the way, the last three blocks at the end of North Washington Avenue, they call Biden Way now.
05:45They renamed it.
05:55This is a private dining room.
05:59Not many people get to come back here.
06:01Barack and I used to have lunch, as I say, once a week in this room right here.
06:06But I have a lot of personal family photographs back here.
06:10This is a picture of my son, Beau, who's passed away.
06:14That's my mom and my dad when I had darker hair.
06:18And here, there are what they call command coins.
06:22Command coins are given on the battlefield.
06:24And the President has a command coin.
06:26And my command coin has on the back of it, Beau's unit.
06:32We went to Iraq for a year.
06:34And so I'm going to give you a copy.
06:36Give you one.
06:37If, in fact, next time I see you, you don't have it, you have to buy the drinks.
06:41But you're in luck.
06:42I'm the only Irishman in Memphis who's never had a drink in his life.
06:46Did you want to see the cabinet room?
06:49I want to show it to you.
06:50Come here.
06:56This is the cabinet room.
06:58Come on in.
07:00There's only one chair in here that's about two inches higher than every other chair.
07:05That's the President's chair.
07:08These chairs are really, really heavy.
07:12These chairs are really, really heavy.
07:15On the back of each chair is the name of the department they represent.
07:21This is the Secretary of Energy here in this chair.
07:24But there's a lot of really incredible things that have happened in this room.
07:27It's almost cathedral-like to me.
07:30Because when we're in here, we're talking about things of enormous consequence.
07:42By the way, there's a tradition in my office.
07:45These chocolate chip cookies are all homemade.
07:48Thank you.
07:59Thanks for coming by Architectural Digest.
08:02By the way, I'm a subscriber.
08:03I'm a frustrated architect.
08:05Thank you very much.
08:06Appreciate it.
08:11Architectural Digest