Biden, who had been diagnosed and treated for brain cancer in 2013 but recently learned the disease had returned, was 46.
“Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known,” the vice president said in a written statement, according to Cable News Network.
Biden had announced his intention to campaign to become Delaware‘s governor in 2016 after completing eight years in the AG’s office in January.
But the Iraq war veteran learned the cancer had returned in spring and was undergoing aggressive treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., when he died, surrounded by familty members.
Biden also suffered a mild stroke in 2010, CNN said.
Biden’s term as attorney general was marked by his pursuit of perpetrators of sex crimes against children, and his pursuit of banks and mortgage lenders for making questionable loans, CNN said.
But Biden’s childhood was marred by a devastating vehicle accident in 1972 that killed his mother, Neilla, and younger sister, Naomi, when he was just 2.
Biden and his brother, Hunter, were injured.
Biden’s death made him the first child of a sitting president or vice president to die since President John F. Kennedy’s son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, died two days after his birth in 1963.
“More than his professional accomplishments, Beau measured himself as a husband, father, son and brother,” the vice president said Saturday.
“His absolute honor made him a role model for our family,” Vice President Joe Biden said.
President Obama saluted the vice president’s son Saturday with a written statement that quoted Irish poet William Butler Yeats.
“Beau Biden believed the best of all of us,” Obama said.
“For him, and for his family, we swing our lanterns higher,” he said.
Biden is also survived by his father’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden; his wife Hallie and children Natalie and Hunter; an older brother, also named Hunter; and a half-sister, Ashley.
