President Joe Biden is well-known for making personal connections at political events and grabbing ice cream on the road whenever possible.
Now, a close aide has disclosed that Biden tries to share his passion of ice cream with the next generation at events, even carrying cash to give children ice cream money during his political speeches.
Stephen Goepfert, Biden’s former ‘body man,’ remarked, “I’ve seen him comfort people who were in tears talking about their personal hardships, console someone who was recently diagnosed with cancer, honor a veteran service-member with a handshake and one of his challenge coins, and also give a young person money for ice cream just for sitting through the speech – all in the same rope line.”
Goepfert trailed Biden at hundreds of events during the campaign and in the White House up to his departure in August.
Biden enjoys the time following his rallies when he can speak with voters individually.
During a recent visit to a Los Angeles taqueria, the president was spotted with a wad of cash; however, he left more than $20 behind requesting the cashier to pay for the folks behind him, rather than as a large tip, according to DailyMail.com.
Biden is back to taking photos with strangers and participating in photo lines with fans and fundraisers after being caged off from crowds early in his term owing to COVID regulations.
He has, like any good politician, taken an interest in children. He suddenly invited two children to a Diwali reception at the White House on Monday, after pointing out two lawmakers in the audience, Ro Khanna and Raja Khrishnamoorthi.
These are your children? God bless you, they had to be yours,’ he joked. “Is that your father right there? “Mommy?” he inquired.
Before complimenting ‘Raja for your leadership,’ he remarked, ‘We have a lot in common, we both married very well’
Biden informed the children they may leave the stage if the event became too dull.
Biden has never been at his best when delivering lengthy speeches, where his delivery may be awkward and his narrative occasionally ramble. Biden’s favorite portion of an event – the rope line, in the language of political strategists – typically begins following the conclusion of his address. He scans the throng and homes in on his first individual target for a one-on-one conversation.
It may be with someone like Milwaukee brewery owner Tim Eichinger, who asked Biden a question during a TV town hall twenty months ago and has subsequently had a one-on-one videoconference with the president and witnessed Biden send a couple of letters to his grandson.
After Biden’s lecture on student debt at Delaware State University on Friday, there were numerous handshakes and photographs with the students. At a Democratic National Committee gathering in Washington on Tuesday, Biden took one audience member backstage for a private photo, autographed several of the abortion rights placards that participants were waving, and posed for a few photographs.
According to his aides, the 79-year-old has polished his selfie arm, whose results are routinely posted on social media.
He has stated that he prefers this strategy to allowing individuals to take close-up photos of him with their own phones.
At an August dinner for Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore, Biden spent more than 75 minutes in three separate rooms after Moore’s address greeting guests. He attracted applause when he snatched a high school drum major’s baton and posed for a photo with it before to the marching band.
All of this is part of a strategy that Biden has honed over the course of decades in his home state of Delaware, whose population is just under 1 million and was roughly half that when Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972.
Scaling this type of personal politics to the presidential level has been difficult, both during Biden’s campaign for the White House during the COVID-19 pandemic, which limited his public appearances, and now that he is in the White House, where the demands on his time – and the security – are greater.
Politically speaking, individual warmth and empathy can only go so far. They helped him establish bipartisan relationships in the Senate, but from the White House, most people only see the president in scripted or manufactured moments the majority of the time. Biden aides have pushed to show voters the president’s private conversations through behind-the-scenes videos of some of the encounters, despite the fact that they are unlikely to ever have such an opportunity.
Nevertheless, Biden requests that time be built into his schedule so that he can connect with individuals at his appearances; these interactions appear to excite him and affect his policymaking.
There can also be embarrassing times, such as when a president’s jest hits poorly, which his political opponents frequently disseminate online in today’s polarized climate. However, good exchanges have defined Biden’s career and taxed the stamina of his staff.
“He outlasts us,” White House deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon told The Associated Press of Biden’s propensity to shake hands for 30 minutes, an hour, and sometimes longer.
Stephen Goepfert, Biden’s former personal assistant or “body man,” stated, “He will take as much time as he wants.”
The president, whose poll ratings have improved in recent months but remain low, has held comparatively few major political rallies leading up to the midterm elections. Numerous Democratic contenders view a Biden appearance as a negative. Aides predict that his schedule and the size of his audiences will increase as his party focuses on voter turnout.
Expect little encounters to continue occurring.
The loss of his first wife and daughter in a car accident, the death of his son to cancer, his recovery from a pair of life-threatening brain aneurysms, and a decades-long struggle to overcome a stutter may have influenced Biden’s ability to recognize when someone is experiencing a personal or family crisis, according to Biden’s aides.
O’Malley Dillon remarked, “He just instinctively understands how to show up for what that individual needs in whatever fashion it may be.”
As Vice President Biden makes his way through a crowd, he frequently summons an aide to take someone backstage for a photo, collect their information for follow-up, or jot down the phone number of a loved one who was unable to be present for a surprise phone call from the president.
In his guarded limousine following an event, Biden is’ready to follow up with the individuals he met, and he’s already making those calls,’ according to Goepfert.
Occasionally, these short encounters develop into long-lasting partnerships.
Before he became president, Biden frequently provided his cell phone number to young people seeking advice on how to overcome a speech impediment. Now that he’s in the Oval Office, Biden maintains phone contact with many of them and sends feedback and words of encouragement via Air Force One.
Thirteen-year-old Brayden Harrington’s speech about how candidate Biden guided him to overcome his stutter was an emotional highlight of the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Another 13-year-old youngster, Ryan, from Arlington, Virginia, continues to trade texts and video messages with Biden through staff after meeting the president at a 2019 rally. Ryan, whose mother asked that his last name not be mentioned, said Biden had ‘helped me be bold’ and join his school’s choir.
On another occasion, a brief Biden interaction with France´s deputy ambassador about their shared connections to Ireland yielded a heartfelt letter to the diplomat´s ‘over the moon’ son.
Annie Tomasini, director of Oval Office operations, and her team track Biden´s interactions and manage the phone calls and letters that commonly follow rope line visits. Some of these relationships have been continuing more than a decade.
‘He takes those encounters, and they stay with him,’ Tomasini said, adding that they are mirrored in Biden’s policy aims.
‘It really drives how he comes back and says, `Hey, listen, folks, we need to focus on these pieces’,´’ she added. His team has gotten used to asking about specific topics that Biden hears about from Americans on the rope line or whom he’s encountered after leaving church.
‘It simply honestly is who he is,’ said O´Malley Dillon. ‘He´s been in many of the shoes that the American people are in.’
Eichinger, co-owner of Milwaukee’s Black Husky Brewing, hadn’t given Biden’s pledge to follow up on a question he posed to the president at a cable TV town hall any thought. A couple of days later, Ashley Williams, deputy director of Oval Office operations, called him to connect him with Biden’s economic staff for a briefing and to plan a 30-minute Zoom meeting with Biden.
Eichinger remembered, “I stated I didn’t anticipate them to do it at all.” She responded, “No, he is not like that. When he makes a statement, he wants us to follow up and maintain the relationship.
Later, Eichinger and his family toured the White House during the Christmas holiday, and Biden sent a letter admiring his school-aged grandson’s violin playing after Williams showed him a video that Eichinger had provided.
Eichinger stated, “I’m simply one of 330 million people out here.” They continue to consider what I have to say significant.