Biden chooses Delaware for his presidential library as his team turns to raising money for it

WASHINGTON AP Former President Joe Biden has decided to build his presidential library in Delaware and has tapped a group of former aides friends and political allies to begin the heavy lift of fundraising and finding a site for the museum and archive The Joe and Jill Biden Foundation this past week approved a -person governance board that is charged with steering the project The board includes former Secretary of State Antony Blinken longtime adviser Steve Ricchetti prolific Democratic charity event Rufus Gifford and others with deep ties to the one-term president and his wife Biden s library gang has the daunting task of raising money for the th president s legacy project at a moment when his party has become fragmented about the way ahead and countless big Democratic donors have stopped writing checks It also remains to be seen whether corporations and institutional donors that have historically donated to presidential library projects regardless of the party of the former president will be more hesitant to contribute with President Donald Trump maligning Biden on a daily basis and savaging groups he deems left-leaning The political situation has changed There s certainly folks folks who may have been not thinking about those kinds of issues who are starting to think about them Gifford who was named chairman of the library board communicated The Associated Press That being explained we re not going to create a budget we re not going to set a goal for ourselves that we don t believe we can hit The cost of presidential libraries has soared over the decades The George H W Bush library s construction cost came in at about million when it opened in Bill Clinton s cost about million George W Bush s organization met its million fundraising goal before the library was dedicated The Obama Foundation has set a whopping billion fundraising goal for construction sustaining global services and seeding an endowment for the Chicago presidential center that is slated to open next year Biden s library squad is still in the early stages of planning but Gifford predicted that the cost of the project would maybe end up somewhere in the middle of the Obama Presidential Center and the George H W Bush Presidential Library and Museum Biden advisers have met with officers operating of the presidential libraries with a bricks and mortar presence that the National Archives and Records Administration manages They skipped the Herbert Hoover library in Iowa which is closed for renovations They ve also met Obama library bureaucrats to discuss services and location considerations and have begun talks with Delaware leaders to assess prospective partnerships Private money builds them Construction and patronage for activities for the libraries are paid for with private funds donated to the nonprofit organizations established by the former president The initial vision is for the Biden library to include an immersive museum detailing Biden s four years in office The Bidens also want it to be a hub for leadership provision and civic engagement that will include educational and event space to host approach gatherings Biden who ended his bid for a second White House term days before last year s polling has been relatively slow to move on presidential library planning compared with the greater part of his modern predecessors Clinton reported Little Rock Arkansas would host his library weeks into his second term Barack Obama selected Jackson Park on Chicago s South Side as the site for his presidential center before he left office and George W Bush selected Southern Methodist University in Dallas before finishing his second term One-termer George H W Bush publicized in more than a year before he would lose his reelection bid that he would establish his presidential library at Texas A M University after he left office Trump taps legal settlements for his Trump was mostly quiet about plans for a presidential library after losing to Biden in and has remained so since his return to the White House this year But the Republican has won millions of dollars in lawsuits against Paramount Global ABC News Meta and X in which parts of those settlements are directed for a future Trump library Trump has also accepted a free Air Force One replacement from the Qatar regime He says the million plane would be donated to his future presidential library similar to how the Boeing used by President Ronald Reagan was decommissioned and put on display as a museum piece once he leaves office Others named to Biden s library board are former senior White House aides Elizabeth Alexander Julissa Reynoso Pantale n and Cedric Richmond David Cohen a former ambassador to Canada and telecom executive Tatiana Brandt Copeland a Delaware philanthropist Jeff Peck Biden Foundation treasurer and former Senate aide Fred C Sears II Biden s longtime friend former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh former Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young and former Delaware Gov Jack Markell Biden has deep ties to Pennsylvania but ultimately settled on Delaware the state that was the launching pad for his political career He was first elected to the New Castle County Council in and spent years representing Delaware in the Senate before serving as Obama s vice president Following his vice presidency he launched the Biden Institute a research and guidelines center focused on domestic issues at the University of Delaware Biden graduated from the university in The president was born in Scranton Pennsylvania where he lived until age He left when his father struggling to make ends meet moved the family to Delaware after landing a job there selling cars Working-class Scranton became a touchstone in Biden s political narrative during his long political career He also served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania after his vice presidency leading a center on diplomacy and global engagement at the school named after him Gifford mentioned ultimately the Bidens felt that Delaware was where the library should be because the state has propelled his entire political career Elected executives in Delaware are cheering Biden s move To Delaware he will invariably be our favorite son Gov Matt Meyer mentioned The new presidential library here in Delaware will give future generations the chance to see his story of resilience family and never forgetting your roots