The Democratic National Convention to nominate Joe Biden took a break on Thursday night from policies and endorsements to showcase a touching speech from 13-year-old Brayden Harrington, who told the audience how Mr Biden helped to boost his confidence by helping him manage his stutter.
“Without Joe Biden I wouldn’t be talking to you today,” said Brayden, addressing the convention in a taped remarks, while reading carefully from a sheet of paper.
“He showed me how he marks his addresses to make them easier to say out loud, so I did the same thing today,” said Brayden, showing his carefully crafted notes to the camera.
“It was really amazing to hear that someone like me became vice president. He told me about a book of poems by Yeats he would read out loud to practise.”
Brayden met Mr Biden during a February CNN town hall in Concord, New Hampshire, where Mr Biden spoke about overcoming a severe childhood stutter. The Democratic presidential candidate has frequently addressed his stutter through the years, noting 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.
“He told me we were members of the same club,” said Brayden, “We stutter.”
Brayden was invited backstage at the February event to receive guidance from Mr Biden on overcoming the speech impediment.
"I'm just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time Joe Biden made me more confident about something that's bothered me my whole life,” said Brayden.
Despite Mr Biden’s transparency about his lifelong stutter, the former vice president has faced near constant ridicule online throughout his campaign for the Democratic nomination, with critics taking aim at his cognitive abilities and intelligence.
Addressing the critics during the February town hall, Mr Biden said: “It has nothing to do with your intellectual make-up.”
