Joe Biden reflected on his own grieving to empathize with Americans who’ve lost loved ones to the coronavirus in an emotional interview on Thursday’s broadcast of “The Late Show.”
Biden also slammed the Trump White House’s fumbled response to the pandemic.
The de-facto Democratic 2020 nominee, toward the end of a 50-minute chat with host Stephen Colbert, urged people who have been sucked into the pandemic’s “big black hole” of grief to remember that those who died were “still part of you, they’re your heart, they’re your soul.”
“It’s who you are, there’s this connection that is real, and the only way I know for me how to get through it is to find purpose,” he said. “What would the person you lost, what would they want you to doing? What can you do to make it better?”
Biden, whose first wife, Neilia, and their 1-year-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in a 1972 car crash, later recalled a promise his son Beau made him make just months before he died of brain cancer at age 46 in 2015.
“He said, ‘Dad, I know no one in the world loves me more than you do,’” remembered Biden. “‘But, Dad, I promise you, I’m going to be OK. My word, I’m going to be OK. But, Dad, promise me you’re going to be OK.’”
“He was worried I would withdraw,” Biden explained, appearing to get visibly emotional. “I would go inside, because mourning in public is a lot different than being able to mourn in private. And he made me promise to stay engaged.”
“I’m sorry I get so personal,” Biden told Colbert after the candid discussion.
Earlier in the interview, Biden wondered why President Donald Trump wasn’t telling citizens the truth about the pandemic.
“They’re tough. They can handle it,” he said. “And tell them what’s going to happen and tell them how you’re going to get these things done. He’s done none of that.”
Check out the full interview here:
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