Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

US Supreme Court Lifts Order That Blocked Trump’s Mass Federal Layoffs

4 hours ago

Trump to Attend Club World Cup Final, FIFA Opens Office in Trump Tower

5 hours ago

Trump Says Pharmaceutical Tariffs Could Reach 200%

5 hours ago

Rescue Teams Find Three More Bodies After Central Texas Floods

5 hours ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rigoberto Simental Aguilar

5 hours ago

Trump Says He Is Not Happy With Russia’s Putin, Considering Sanctions

5 hours ago

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to Be Sentenced on October 3

5 hours ago

Israeli Military Says It Struck Key Hamas Figure in Lebanon’s Tripoli

6 hours ago

Madera County Sheriff Logs 29 Fire-Related Calls on Fourth of July, Most in 5 Years

6 hours ago

Trump Says He May Take Over Governance of Washington, DC

6 hours ago
In Moving Speech, Boy Says Biden Helped Him Overcome Stutter
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 5 years ago on
August 21, 2020

Share

WASHINGTON — Even in a week filled with emotional endorsements of Joe Biden, Brayden Harrington’s stands out.

The 13-year-old boy sat in his home, speaking to a cellphone camera and reading, carefully, from a piece of paper. He looked up and told the world how the former vice president, by speaking about his own experience, had helped him overcome a difficult challenge.

“We stutter,” Brayden said in a video that aired Thursday, shortly before Biden accepted his party’s presidential nomination on the final night of the Democratic National Convention. The Concord, New Hampshire, teen got stuck briefly on the “s” sound and bravely worked his way through the word. His face showed strain but also determination to force out the sound.

“It’s really amazing to hear that someone became vice president” despite stuttering, Brayden said. “He told me about a book of poems by Yeats that he would read out loud to practice.”

Biden has spoken frequently about how overcoming a stutter was one of the hardest things he’s done in life. Brayden and Biden met at a February CNN town hall in Concord, where Biden spoke about overcoming a severe childhood stutter. He’s talked frequently publicly through the years about the anger and frustration of being mocked by classmates and a nun in Catholic school — and how that motivated him to work to overcome it.

“It has nothing to do with your intellectual makeup,” he said at the town hall.

Biden Has Talked About His Stutter Frequently on the Presidential Campaign Trail

After the event, Biden invited Brayden backstage to talk more about learning to control a stutter. Biden noted that he’d practiced by speaking as he looked at himself in the mirror. He also gave the boy a speech he’d prepared for delivery, complete with markings he’d made on its pages that showed where he had time to take breaks and pauses so that the words would come out more smoothly.

Brayden held up that speech for convention viewers on Thursday.

“I’m just trying to be a kid,” Brayden said. “And in a short amount of time, Joe Biden made me feel more confident about something that’s bothered me my whole life. Joe Biden cared. Imagine what he could do for all of us.”

“Kids like me are counting on you to elect someone we can all look up to,” he added.

Biden has talked about his stutter frequently on the presidential campaign trail and how it sometimes returns on certain words, especially if he’s tired.

After he talked about it during a Democratic primary debate in December — and even started to make the sounds of a stutter — then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders ridiculed Biden on Twitter. The tweet was later deleted and Sanders apologized. Biden said afterward that he had no regrets “because I know what it’s like to be humiliated.”

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Union Files Ethics Complaint After College Chancellor’s ‘Goddaughter’ Receives $161K In Contracts

DON'T MISS

Fresno Police Arrest Suspect Tied to 2 Shootings, Firearm Recovered

DON'T MISS

Are Former Measure C Execs Pushing Their Own Ballot Measure?

DON'T MISS

San Luis Obispo’s Madre Fire Near New Cuyama Grows to 80,615 Acres, 35% Contained

DON'T MISS

US Justice Department Scrambles to Defend Its About-Face on Release of Epstein Files

DON'T MISS

US Supreme Court Lifts Order That Blocked Trump’s Mass Federal Layoffs

DON'T MISS

Trump to Attend Club World Cup Final, FIFA Opens Office in Trump Tower

DON'T MISS

Trump Says Pharmaceutical Tariffs Could Reach 200%

DON'T MISS

Rescue Teams Find Three More Bodies After Central Texas Floods

DON'T MISS

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rigoberto Simental Aguilar

UP NEXT

TSA Set to Let Airport Travelers Keep Their Shoes on, Media Reports Say

UP NEXT

Space Industry Urges Congress Not to Axe System That Prevents Satellite Collisions

UP NEXT

Rescuers Scour Flood Debris in Texas as Hope Fades for Survivors

UP NEXT

US Veterans Affairs Will Cut Nearly 30,000 Jobs, Far Fewer Than Planned

UP NEXT

US Proposes Rules That Could Boost Oil, Gas Output in US West

UP NEXT

Man Dead After Firing at US Border Patrol Station in Texas

UP NEXT

Texas Girls’ Camp Mourning Dozens Dead in Floods as Search Teams Face More Rain

UP NEXT

Death Toll From Texas Floods Reaches 78, Trump Plans Visit

UP NEXT

Death Toll From Texas Floods Reaches 59, Including 21 Children

UP NEXT

Fresno Crash Involving Unlicensed Teen Driver Sends Woman to Hospital

San Luis Obispo’s Madre Fire Near New Cuyama Grows to 80,615 Acres, 35% Contained

3 hours ago

US Justice Department Scrambles to Defend Its About-Face on Release of Epstein Files

3 hours ago

US Supreme Court Lifts Order That Blocked Trump’s Mass Federal Layoffs

4 hours ago

Trump to Attend Club World Cup Final, FIFA Opens Office in Trump Tower

5 hours ago

Trump Says Pharmaceutical Tariffs Could Reach 200%

5 hours ago

Rescue Teams Find Three More Bodies After Central Texas Floods

5 hours ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Rigoberto Simental Aguilar

5 hours ago

Trump Says He Is Not Happy With Russia’s Putin, Considering Sanctions

5 hours ago

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs to Be Sentenced on October 3

5 hours ago

Israeli Military Says It Struck Key Hamas Figure in Lebanon’s Tripoli

6 hours ago

Union Files Ethics Complaint After College Chancellor’s ‘Goddaughter’ Receives $161K In Contracts

The faculty union for instructors at the State Center Community College District filed an ethics complaint in June after learning that a clo...

51 minutes ago

51 minutes ago

Union Files Ethics Complaint After College Chancellor’s ‘Goddaughter’ Receives $161K In Contracts

Jershawn Worthy was identified as the suspect in two Fresno shootings and is now facing multiple firearm-related charges. (Fresno PD)
52 minutes ago

Fresno Police Arrest Suspect Tied to 2 Shootings, Firearm Recovered

2 hours ago

Are Former Measure C Execs Pushing Their Own Ballot Measure?

The Madre Fire near New Cuyama has burned more than 80,615 acres, injured one firefighter, and prompted multiple evacuation orders as crews work to contain the growing wildfire. (CalFire)
3 hours ago

San Luis Obispo’s Madre Fire Near New Cuyama Grows to 80,615 Acres, 35% Contained

U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein appears in a photograph taken for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services' sex offender registry March 28, 2017 and obtained by Reuters July 10, 2019. New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
3 hours ago

US Justice Department Scrambles to Defend Its About-Face on Release of Epstein Files

A general view of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, U.S., June 1, 2024. (Reuters File)
4 hours ago

US Supreme Court Lifts Order That Blocked Trump’s Mass Federal Layoffs

President Donald Trump holds the key to the FIFA Club World Cup trophy in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 7, 2025. (Reuters File)
5 hours ago

Trump to Attend Club World Cup Final, FIFA Opens Office in Trump Tower

Vials are seen in this undated handout photo. Pfizer/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
5 hours ago

Trump Says Pharmaceutical Tariffs Could Reach 200%

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend