[music playing]
Well, welcome to a place you've spent some time.
Thank you, sir.
I have-- the fireplace has never been
on when I've been in here.
I tell you what.
I have it on all the time.
It's kind of humbling walking in here.
Absolutely.
I mean, for real.
I had my brother, Jimmy, come in and, you know,
pick the rug, and the desk, and all that stuff.
And, make a long story short, I come walking in, like,
5:00 on inauguration day.
And I walked in and I said, jeez.
I said, I've never seen Franklin Roosevelt. I'm
an admirer, but it was always George Washington's
small portrait there.
Right.
And Abraham Lincoln and Jon Meacham,
the presidential historian.
Jimmy had called him for some help.
And he looked and he said, because no one's
ever inherited a world economy in as much disarray as he had.
And I thought, oh, that's wonderful.
There you go. That tracks.
And I said, well, why Lincoln?
And he said, the country has never been as divided
since Lincoln was president.
But what I did was I wanted to be able to sit here at my desk
and look out.
And I only had two political heroes
when I was getting involved.
That fellow over there, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
I very admire John Kennedy.
I could never picture John Kennedy at my kitchen table.
I could kind of picture maybe.
And then the two people who I got involved, engaged with
was Cesar Chavez because I got not involved,
but I supported verbally the Farm Workers Union
they were trying to organize in Delaware when I was
running as a 29-year-old kid.
And his granddaughter works for me.
And then Rosa Parks, who's over here.
And so I tried to--
I tried to make it kind of warm, like I thought about.
The other guy never showed up on inauguration day,
so I didn't have to worry about it.
But it's kind of neat.
And the things I've done in here.
Like, for example, I the moon rock over here.
All right, I'm a huge NASA fan, a big astronomy fan.
- Are you really? - So this is very cool.
Well, this is cool.
That's an actual moon rock.
And one of the-- you know, that rover they have up there.
Yeah.
My name is in the back with other presidents.
Oh, that's cool.
It's really cool, but I want to show
you something really cool.
Come on back here.
Not many people come back this way, but come on in.
Thank you, sir.
Oh, yeah.
Not only are we seeing the Oval Office,
we're also getting a rare tour of the president's
private study.
This is like the world's most dignified episode
of MTV Cribs.
By the way, that is a Wyeth painting of--
by Jamie Wyeth, the son.
And he told me the Kennedy family
didn't like him because he made him look too contemplative.
- Oh. - But--
- He's got a smile. - I know.
I think it's great.
But anyway, and that's the house
I was raised in in Scranton.
Oh, that's awesome.
Wow.
Or as they say, Scra-on.
Scra-on.
So I went and spoke at the Kennedy Library
a couple of times.
The last time I spoke there, I get
handed this by Caroline Kennedy.
And it's that famous letter he wrote.
KAL PENN: Wow.
JOE BIDEN: And this is the actual copy.
And it's, you know, why am I going?
We chose to go to the moon in this decade
because that goal will serve the origins of measure
by the best of us.
And it goes on and on.
KAL PENN: Well, that's--
I mean, the-- just even that top line, no prejudice,
no hate in outer space.
Bingo.
I don't know if you have any tattoos.
I've got some from the NASA Voyager,
which was launched in '77.
And the Golden Record, which had science, music, art.
Yeah.
But no politics, no war, no religion.
None of the things that divide us.
And so it's just the idea of hope through exploration.
Unfortunately, before the president
showed me all of his tattoos, it was time to go.
- Thanks. - Thank you, sir.
I really appreciate your time.
And thank you so much for the stories and the Oval tour.