After the Obama administration cedes the White House to Donald Trump, Joe Biden will head to the University of Pennsylvania to work in foreign policy and will continue the so-called Cancer Moonshot through an organization called The Biden Trust.
The vice president all but confirmed his plans today while chatting with a member of senator Kamala Harris’s entourage after ceremonially swearing in the new legislator from California. Both moves have been rumored but unconfirmed in recent weeks.
After the standard glad-handing and photo op, Biden greeted Harris’s associate and asked how she and her son were doing, with familiarity and apparently with concern. (Harris’s office was unable to immediately confirm who the woman was.) He then went on to tell her that he was starting up an organization “The Biden Trust, to continue the cancer work,” and that the effort will not be “so much about raising money or philanthropy—though there will be some of that—but it’s more about keeping these guys cooperating and changing the culture.”
When the guest apparently (and inaudibly) suggests where he’ll be operating out of, Biden replies that he’ll be “based out of Penn for foreign policy” but “I’m deliberately not associating with any one medical center.”
A clip I made of the encounter can be seen on CSPAN.
The Moonshot was a key policy initiative by the Obama administration that the president announced in his final State of the Union address. Biden has chaired the effort and pushed to get researchers to more willingly share their data.
The position at Penn was first reported by Politico. Biden’s cancer center plan was initially reported by The Cancer Letter.
The University of Pennsylvania declined to comment and the vice president’s office did not return a request for comment.