--- title: How Joe Biden Helped a Man With a Childhood Stutter Overcome His Fears description: The vice president sent this young man a letter that eventually led him to be sworn in as a prosecutor — by Beau Biden canonical: https://time.com/3944137/joe-biden-help-man/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-02T00:03:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:21:42.833Z og:title: How Joe Biden Helped a Man With a Childhood Stutter Overcome His Fears og:description: The Vice President sent this young man a letter og:url: https://time.com/3944137/joe-biden-help-man/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Joe Biden Helped a Man With a Childhood Stutter Overcome His Fears twitter:description: The Vice President sent this young man a letter twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # How Joe Biden Helped a Man With a Childhood Stutter Overcome His Fears  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Jul 2, 2015 12:03 AM UTC  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Jul 2, 2015 12:03 AM UTC An attorney named Branden Brooks—known as Skip—shared a story on Twitter Wednesday about how Vice President Joe Biden and his late son, Beau Biden, helped him overcome his fears and achieve his dreams. According to Brooks, Joe Biden spoke to his class during a trip to Washington, D.C. when Brooks was in grade school. Biden, who had a stutter as a child, noticed that Brooks also stuttered during the question and answer session. He sent the boy an encouraging letter afterwards > [](https://twitter.com/SkipBrooks9/status/616291145237147648) Biden told Brooks to keep working to overcome his stutter and to treat everyone with respect as he did. Brooks offered more background on the story: > [](https://twitter.com/SkipBrooks9/status/616325622965497857) Biden replied to Brooks’ tweets: > [](https://twitter.com/VP/status/616311659922001920) After hearing from the Vice President, Brooks went on to share with him that he had been sworn in as a prosecutor in Delaware by Biden’s late son, Beau Biden, in 2008. > [](https://twitter.com/SkipBrooks9/status/616313347554697216) The Vice President’s office confirmed Brooks’ account to TIME. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3944137/joe-biden-help-man/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3944137/joe-biden-help-man/"},"headline":"How Joe Biden Helped a Man With a Childhood Stutter Overcome His Fears","datePublished":"2015-07-02T00:03:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:21:42.833Z","description":"The Vice President sent this young man a letter that eventually led him to be sworn in as a prosecutor—by Beau Biden","url":"https://time.com/3944137/joe-biden-help-man/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Joe Biden","Internet"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliana Dockterman","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3944137/joe-biden-help-man/","name":"How Joe Biden Helped a Man With a Childhood Stutter Overcome His Fears"}}]}] ```