Funeral Held for Vice President Joe Biden's Son Beau Biden; President Obama to Give Eulogy for Beau Biden; GOP Presidential Candidates Gather in Iowa to Campaign; President Obama to Urge EU to Continue Sanctions against Russia.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST: Thank you so much for joining me. Don't forget you can follow me on Twitter if you can spell "SMERCONISH." I'll see you next week.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this morning with the funeral for beloved son of Delaware, Beau Biden.</s>CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Take a look at the screen here for you. The funeral mass for Vice President Joe Biden's son scheduled to begin in just about a half-hour. You can hear the music, though, that they're playing, as we have heard of long lines, lines five blocks long, outside the church waiting to be seated. They're entering St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church, there, in Wilmington. And also we need to take a look at this. The American flag at half-staff at White House right now in honor of Beau Biden.</s>BLACKWELL: President Obama will deliver a eulogy this morning. Just a short time ago h\He and the first lady boarded air force one to go to Wilmington. The White House says Mr. Obama will honor Delaware's former attorney general as a remarkable son, father and public servant.</s>PAUL: CNN national correspondent Sunlen Serfaty is going to be with us in a bit. But we do want to get right now to Douglas Brinkley and talk to you, Douglas, if we could, please, about Beau Biden and the legacy that he leaves.</s>DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, in some ways it's fitting that today's D-Day, because it's a day we think of as a great day of military service. And Beau Biden, who had an opportunity to stay in politics, stay in Delaware, make money, work in a law firm, decided to dedicate his life to public service. In his mind that meant joining the National Guard, and that meant becoming a major in the armed forces and serving overseas duty in Iraq. So today's funeral will have a military feel to it. But it's also, he was a religious man, a child of Roman Catholicism, somebody who believed in God and Jesus Christ. And so it's, it's really a very sad loss. And you have to feel for the vice president losing a child, while he has the pressures of the world on your shoulders, and having to kind of soldier on. And at previous moments in American history sitting presidents or vice presidents have lost children. But it's always the darkest moment. So today's a very sad day.</s>PAUL: In fact I was reading some of the comments that are online. One person wrote "Even though I don't agree with Vice President Biden's politics, my heart breaks for him. God bless this man and his family and give them strength." When you read about how people are embracing this family. Not just people in Delaware, but people all over the country, possibly all over the world, what is it do you think about this family that makes people care so much?</s>BRINKLEY: Well, Joe Biden has been in American politics for a while. He's our vice president. He's beloved. And the fact of the matter is, we always think of the Kennedy family, as being surrounded with tragedy. But if you look at what Joe Biden has had to go through, and, you know, and what Beau had. Beau had lost his mother in an automobile accident which he was injured along with his brother, Hunter. And, you know, they lost, he lost a sister. And so the vice president is not new to loss. But he was so incredibly close to Beau, so proud of him. And Beau Biden was a bit of what we used to call in America a Boy Scout. He wanted everything to be right. He believed in old-fashioned public service. He joined the Justice Department to get bad people out of the public sphere. As I mentioned, he served in our armed forces and was a very shining light in Delaware politics. I mean, beloved as attorney general, was going to be almost a shoo-in to become governor. And his political potential was just sky-less. I mean, he was going to be going far. And any time you lose somebody that's in their 40s to cancer, in this case brain cancer, I think it reminds everybody watching, we're all, cancer has, touches all of us and just how heinous it is and how deeply the Bidens and the Obamas are in the Bidens extended family, and all of America are feeling right now. There's a lot of love going towards the Biden family this afternoon.</s>BLACKWELL: A tremendous loss. Douglas Brinkley, stand by for us. We want to bring in CNN national correspondent Sunlen Serfaty. She's outside the church in Wilmington. OK, we'll have to go back to Sunlen in just a moment. We'll get Sunlen her in just a moment, so I'll stay with you, Douglas. And put it into a larger context, the role and of the president coming, not just to eulogize a friend he had in Beau Biden but to support his vice president. And we've seen this throughout history.</s>BRINKLEY: Well, you know what, President Obama loves Joe Biden. It's not a word we often talk about in the political sphere, the love, but there is a huge amount of love. And this is a president and vice president who get along exceedingly well. Joe Biden is somebody who usually brings comic relief to the president. He has a great sense of humor and is usually somebody that helps the president kind of laugh through some of the day. In this case, you see President Obama coming to really probably give one of the most stunning eulogies imaginable. And the very fact that he's arriving there and honoring Beau Biden and Beau's service is very meaningful. Remember, Beau Biden was the one who introduced his father at the Democratic convention. That whole family narrative of how Joe Biden when his first wife was killed, how Joe Biden would take the train back to Delaware to make sure he was raising Beau and Hunter Biden and his children properly. And I think we have to think of Beau Biden's children, his two kids who now are fatherless suddenly. And so it's a very important funeral I think in American history today. The last time you had a death of a sitting president or vice president was John F. Kennedy back in August of 1963 when they lost Patrick. Patrick was only born for two days, was born premature, weighed five pounds, and died. So we really haven't had since '63 a sitting president or vice president that lost a family member like this.</s>PAUL: You know, you mentioned how he used to take the train back and forth. In his Yale University commencement address just this past year, I want to read you something that Joe said, Joe Biden said. He said "Looking back on it, the truth be told, the reason I went home every night was that I needed my children more than they needed me." And he was saying this about pundits who suggested his absence from Washington would wreck his political career. And then he went on to say "I realized I didn't miss a thing. Ambition is really important. You need it. I certainly never lacked having ambition, but ambition without perspective can be a killer" is what he said. And they're such profound words that come from Joe Biden. I want to go to Sunlen Serfaty now, because she is, we're looking here at what's happening inside the church, but she's got a perspective outside the church. Sunlen we had heard at one point the lines to get in from five blocks long. What are you seeing there at this hour?</s>SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Christi. And today is no exception to those long lines we saw at the public viewing here yesterday. Today at this funeral people started lining up at 4:30 a.m. and the line really stretched around the block. You can see behind me some people still making their way inside the church, which as you've been looking at, live pictures inside the church, that church is packed, holding hundreds. President Obama and the first family, including the first grandmother, Marian Robinson, they have landed here in Wilmington, Delaware. They're making their way to this church in the little Italy part of Wilmington, Delaware. We know that President Obama is feeling this loss very personally. That's according to his press secretary. We know that President Obama is taking a personal role in writing his eulogy that he will deliver here later today. And in addition to President Obama, though, we'll also hear from members of the Biden family. Beau Biden's sister, Ashley, and Beau Biden's brother, Hunter, will also give an address, as well as General Ray Odierno. He was the commanding in Iraq when Beau Biden served there, who certainly has some emotional remarks to come. Christi?</s>BLACKWELL: We understand, Sunlen, that you have the program now that attendees of the ceremony will receive.</s>SERFATY: That's right. We do have the program which they are of course giving to everyone as they come in here. And I want to make reference to just this picture that's on the cover of the program. As you can see, a very casual photo of Beau Biden. It looks like he's on a fishing trip. I imagine this is probably how the family wants to remember him, not in any formal picture from when he was attorney general or perhaps when he was serving in Iraq, but a casual picture of him enjoying life. And certainly we will hear many details of that life today. We know that among the pall bearers are his uncle, the younger brother to the vice president. And some of the readers are three of Beau Biden's nieces, daughters to his brother. Back to you.</s>BLACKWELL: All right, Sunlen Serfaty outside the church there in Wilmington, Delaware. Thank you, and also our thanks to Douglas Brinkley for putting much of this into context for us. Let's switch gears now and turn to Dana Bash, with Republicans who are now -- running another lap in 2016. GOP candidates are in Iowa this morning. Are we going to that? OK, all right, taking part in the first annual roast and ride in the city of Boone. It's part of a memorial motorcycle ride. And it's also conservative campaigning. CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash is in the mix. Dana, tell us what's going on there?</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're still actually in Des Moines because this is where the ride part of the roast and ride is going to begin. You see behind me, this is a Harley barn, and what Joni Ernst, who is the freshman center from Iowa, and, as you can imagine, a Harley rider herself, decided what she wanted to do is to make this, perhaps, the first annual tradition of making this kind of fun day for Harley riders but also a very political day for would-be Republican presidential candidates. And of course this is a presidential year, actual presidential candidates. Let's just start here. There' going to be a gathering of a lot of Harley riders, and there are groups who have been gathered from police officer groups from veteran groups. They are going to be riding from here 38 miles to the town of Boone, Iowa. And it is there that the presidential candidates are going to be speaking. We're told that they are only going to have eight minutes each to speak. Seven of them are going to come. But there actually is going to be one presidential candidate who is going to take the ride along with Joni Ernst. Actually, he's not officially a candidate, but we expect him to be soon, and that's Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin. He is a Harley rider, a Harley lover we're told. And he is been talking with his aides. He's very excited to be riding in the race, not just speaking at the event later. Victor and Christi?</s>BLACKWELL: So, Dana, we've been talking about the debates that are coming and the attempt to crack into the top 10. And what does, does a candidate have to do, specifically, to get into that top 10, to get into the debate?</s>BASH: It's very difficult and there's a lot of angst here frankly, among Republicans and among the supporters of those like Lindsey Graham, for example, like Carly Fiorina, like Ben Carson, all of whom will actually be at this event today who are barely more than asterisks in the polls right now. And because of that and because there is such a huge field, and the first debate at FOX is saying only 10 people on the stage and it will depend where you are. There is so much effort right now going into getting support early to bump themselves up. And this particular event is, is a very good forum for a lot of these candidates, or potential candidates, to get themselves noticed, to get themselves more support so they can be on the national stage. But you know what, the thing about places like Iowa is that it really is still about one-on-one campaigning, and a lot of the candidates who are kind of at the bottom of the polling totem pole, they say that even if they don't get on the stage nationally that they are hoping that by spending a lot of time here gripping and grinning and going to house parties and meeting people one-on-one, that when it comes to the caucuses, which is really kind of a personal and organizing experience, then that may be at least in the short-term will matter more than the debate stage. But the debate stage is important for those donors where they look at the candidates and say this is somebody who I can put my money behind, and that matters when there are so many people in the race, and this is going to be a long slog. Victor and Christi?</s>BLACKWELL: Indeed. Dana Bash in Des Moines for us this morning, Dana, thanks.</s>PAUL: There's another revelation in the Dennis Hastert scandal, a third victim now accusing the former House speaker of sexual abuse. This of course after a woman reveals her brother was molested, she says, by Hastert during high school. We have some of the new details for you coming up. Stay close.