There is reportedly a “rivalry” between Joe Biden and Barack Obama that dates back many years, with the current president often comparing himself to the previous one.
The “rivalry” between Obama and Biden
“Obama would be jealous,” Biden has reportedly said in the past, “when it comes to a perceived outcome,” according to two Biden aides who spoke to Axios.
Other Biden aides complained that “Obama and his team did not fully appreciate Biden’s experience with foreign policy, Congress and take-it-and-smile politics — and were disrespectful.”
“The Obama people thought Biden would suck as president,” said a former Biden aide. “They didn’t think he would be organized enough to execute him.”
“We have too many Obama people who don’t care about Joe Biden. It’s about them,” another former White House official added.
“When people say, ‘This is what worked for Obama,’ their first response is often, ‘We’re not Obama,’” one senior Democrat said, referring to Biden’s staff.
Related: Biden told Obama he was right and Barack was wrong after Hillary’s death in 2016 – ‘People just don’t like him’: Report
Disagreement between Obama and Biden
Disagreements between Obama and Biden reportedly date back over a decade, when the latter was the former’s vice president. In his book “The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore Foreign Policy After Trump,” Politico’s Alexander Ward revealed a private discussion between the two men in 2014, when Russian forces invaded Crimea and later annexed the peninsula, making it part of Russia in 2014. trials.
“The United States could have done more if Barack Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, had been in command. Russia should “pay in blood and treasure” for its actions, Biden told his boss at the start of the 2014 invasion,” Ward wrote. “Obama didn’t agree, but he made Biden his effective ambassador to Ukraine during the crisis.”
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates denied that Obama and Biden are in a contentious relationship.
“We recognize that the actual level of drama in this White House is insufficient to meet some reporting quotas, but President Biden makes no such comments in private,” Bates told Fox News. “As President Biden said, President Obama is family to him.”
Bates went on to say that Obama and Biden have a strong “personal connection” and agree “overwhelmingly on the issues facing the country, including building an economy that works from the bottom up and from the center to the top.” ‘external, the protection of our critical freedoms and the opposition attacks on our democracy.”
“There are no stronger supporters of President Biden’s leadership and agenda than President Obama, his team, and the alumni of the Obama-Biden administration, many of whom are serving during this presidency,” he continued. “And the president speaks frequently with both former President Obama and President Clinton.”
Obama’s spokesperson also denied tensions between him and Biden, saying the Obama Alumni Association hosted an event for Biden’s reelection campaign where attendees chanted “Fired up, ready to go” in support of the president.
Related: Trump responds after report indicates Obama worries Biden’s loss would be ‘dangerous for democracy’
Previous reports on tensions between Obama and Biden
However, reports of a contentious relationship between Obama and Biden date back many years. In his 2017 memoir “Promise Me, Dad,” Biden admitted that Obama “subtly weighed against” his presidential bid in 2015, and that he believed the former president preferred Hillary Clinton as a running mate over him, according to The Hill. .
In his 2023 book “The Last Politician,” author Franklin Foer wrote that after becoming president, Biden was determined to treat Kamala Harris better than he thinks Obama treated him.
“[Biden] wanted to treat Harris with the respect he felt Barack Obama had not accorded him,” Foer wrote. “He made a point of referring to her as THE vice president, as opposed to My vice president. He was a stickler for asking his opinion during meetings and making sure his office was kept up to date.
Obama and Biden can present a united front all they want, but it seems clear there is no love lost between them behind the scenes. It seems Obama can’t even deny that Biden is one of the worst presidents our country has ever seen!
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