A corvette, swimsuit photos and a trip to Mongolia: Biden offers a selfie tour through his life

He used phrases that dated him. When he wanted to refer to someone in a generic way, he used a made-up name, as in “Charlie Schmedlap” or “Senator Schmedlap.” When describing how to find out more about what happened, he invoked an old nursery rhyme and said he was trying to find out “who killed Cock Robin.”

Among those who made cameo appearances in his rambling speech were Strom Thurmond, Cory Booker and Benjamin Netanyahu. Showing a photo of himself with an arm around Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and an estranged friend, he said, “These are old times.” From the cold type of a transcription it was not clear: was he wistful or bitter?

But he cherished the hope that one day he would receive help of a more eternal nature from another acquaintance. “I still communicate with the Pope, you know what I mean,” he said. “But is it constant? No. Anyway.” He continued: “He is my ticket.” The lawyers laughed. “That was a joke,” he clarified in case it wasn’t. (At the same time, as he often does in public, he wanted to make sure his interlocutors didn’t think he was joking when he wasn’t. “I’m not funny,” he said eight times during the interviews.)

He told well-worn stories about his decision to run for president in 2020 — how a dying Beau Biden, his eldest son, insisted he did not retire from public life out of grief, how he was thrilled when President Donald J. Trump equated white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, with the protesters against them and how his grandchildren called a family meeting to urge him to enter the race.

Some of the more interesting stories, however, were about his early adulthood, now more than half a century ago. He “didn’t take law school very seriously,” he admitted, but once gave a 10-minute speech in class without reading the material and “the whole class stood up and started clapping.” He wanted to move to Idaho after law school, but went to a job interview at a law firm in Delaware where he was told, “I assume you expect to be hired based on your appearance.”