Joe Biden’s outward appearance of geniality and good humor belie a fierce temper behind the scenes, with the former vice president routinely lashing out at staff, a new report says.
A New Yorker article running more than 10,000 words and focused on the Democratic front-runner’s living son, Hunter, says Biden’s White House aides were too “intimidated” to raise some concerns to Biden about his kin. Particularly over the optics of Hunter Biden’s introducing his father to one of his new business partners — Jonathan Li, who ran a Chinese private-equity fund, Bohai Capital.
“Everyone who works for him has been screamed at,” a former adviser told the magazine.
Others avoided broaching the topic out of fear of “hurting [Biden’s] feelings,” while a business associate said when others ever brought up the topic of his family, Biden “got deeply melancholy, which, to me, is more painful than if someone yelled and screamed at me.”
“It’s like you’ve hurt him terribly. That was always my fear, that I would be really touching a very fragile part of him,” the individual added.
The revelation about Biden echo those reported about 2020 rival Amy Klobuchar, a Mionnesota senator, shortly before she announced her presidential run in February. Former staffers for the Minnesota senator accused her of throwing objects and violently berating them over minor mistakes.
She was said to have eaten salad with a comb on a plane and then made an aide clean it.
Klobuchar defended her behavior, saying: “Yes I can be tough. And yes I can push people…I have high expectations for the people that work for me. But I have high expectations for this country.”
