U.S. Vice President Joe Biden expressed his profound anger at the Democratic Party for not allowing him to run in the elections, as he succumbed to pressure from former President Barack Obama, who favored Hillary Clinton back in 2016. However, now it seems that feelings of anger intertwined with stubbornness are resurfacing in the president, who is facing the same pressure from his friend.
Several people close to Biden believe that his bitterness towards former President Obama and the Democratic Congress members who are now criticizing him makes him more determined to continue his campaign, even as some of his aides think stepping out of the race is inevitable. Many of Obama’s advisors pressured Biden not to run in 2016, and Biden’s resentment from that episode has diminished Obama’s influence on him as the president considers his path forward.
If Obama pressures Biden not to run this time, former Biden aides have stated that it could make Biden more resolved to remain a candidate. A former aide said, "Obama already used this tactic in 2016 when his team pressured him not to run. You can’t do that more than once." After Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, Biden felt guilty for not running himself and was angry at those who urged him not to. He believed he could have defeated Trump in 2016, according to people who spoke with him afterward.
While Biden may bend to extraordinary party pressure, his resentment from 2016 strengthens his determination to stay in the race as he is convinced he is the most electable candidate against Trump. Biden's core team often overlooks skeptics after his victory in the 2020 primary and the 2022 midterm elections, which exceeded expectations and were significantly better than Obama's first midterm election results, as they note.
One of Biden's aides told Axios, "There have been countless moments where we considered Washington and a broad sector of Democrats out of the calculations, but we managed to achieve unprecedented successes." Obama does not have close ties with most of Biden's inner circle, which further limits his influence. His strongest relationship is with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, who wields influence but does not have a close personal relationship with Biden like other senior aides.
Obama has no current contact with Biden, as the president told NBC News on Monday that he hadn't spoken with the former president in "several weeks." There is also tension between Michelle Obama and the first family due to Biden's treatment of Hunter's ex-wife Kathleen Buhle, a close friend of Michelle.
The resentments from 2016 still linger in the Biden family’s memories. Biden’s family expressed caution towards individuals who sided with Hillary Clinton before Biden made his decision in 2015, including some of Biden's top aides now like Jake Sullivan, even though Biden chose him to be the nation's youngest national security advisor in decades.
Looking back, when Obama and Biden communicated over the phone after Trump’s victory in 2016, a person familiar with the call said Biden's remarks were unremarkable, but his tone was "I told you so." When Biden was considering running in the summer and fall of 2015, he held meetings with senior political advisors to Obama—David Plouffe, David Axelrod, and David Simas.
While Biden was capable of winning the general election, they all told the then-vice president that winning the primary was unlikely given the late entry and the strength of both Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders. Biden remained skeptical and felt Clinton was weak due to her low trust numbers, but his own trust ratings could also drop once he entered the race. After Trump defeated her, Biden ran into Simas and, in anger, remarked, "Oh, trust doesn’t matter, does it?" according to the book "The Long Alliance," which addresses the Obama-Biden relationship.
Plouffe told The New York Times earlier this year that "the idea that there was a red carpet available, you know, Barack Obama blocked it, is not based in reality." He added, "Joe Biden would have run for president for the third time, to get the nomination, and he wouldn’t have succeeded; he would never have become president."
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates stated, "President Biden is driven by the same principles that have defined his life in public service, to get the work done on behalf of the American people—like making wealthy special interests pay their fair share of taxes, strengthening and expanding social security, restoring abortion rights, and bringing the country together."
Biden and Obama share a genuine friendship, but this emotional bond sometimes complicates the dynamic more than the typical relationship between a president and vice president. Biden feels competitive with Obama, which has influenced some of his major decisions, aides say. Behind closed doors, when discussing perceived accomplishments, the president said, "Obama would be jealous," aides report (the White House denied this).
Joe Scarborough from MSNBC, a close associate of the president, stated on his show last week that "Joe Biden feels deep bitterness about how he was treated by Obama’s team as well as the way he was sidelined in favor of Hillary Clinton." Obama's aides have long maintained that Obama was merely a consultant to Biden in 2015, offering straightforward advice, but did not pressure him. Obama was also concerned about Biden at that time, as it was in the months following Beau Biden's death, and the vice president was very emotional.
In his interview last fall with special advisor Robert Hoare, Biden mentioned that in 2015 "a lot of people... encouraged me to run at that time, except the president... he just thought that [Clinton] had a better chance of winning the presidency than I did."
