Beau Biden, 46, son of US Vice President Joe Biden died on Saturday after a recurrence of brain cancer. He served eight years as the Attorney General of Delaware.
President Obama and the First Lady, went to the U.S. Naval Observatory, the vice president’s official residence, to offer their condolences to the Biden family. The Obamas had been scheduled to host a reception at the White House on Sunday but canceled it out of respect for the Bidens.
Beau Biden had suffered a mild stroke in 2010 and was later diagnosed with brain cancer in August 2013. But after surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, a clean bill of health was given. The cancer returned in the spring of 2015.
Biden, served a year-long tour in Iraq as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard, and had announced last year that he planned to run for governor of Delaware in 2016.
Top Washington officials and politicians took to social media to express their sympathies over Biden’s death, who is survived by his wife Hallie and two children.
Secretary of State John Kerry called Beau “a son any father might hope to raise” and recalled how he chose to continue serving in the military in Iraq rather than be appointed to the Senate seat his father was leaving to become vice president in 2009.
A long-time Senate colleague of Joe Biden, Senator Patrick Leahy, called Beau “an impressive, down-to-earth person and a natural leader.”
Former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, offered condolences on Twitter, along with House Speaker John Boehner and potential Republican presidential nominees Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee.
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