Vice President Joe Biden isn’t thrilled about being seen as “Goofy Uncle Joe.”
“No, I’m not comfortable with Goofy Uncle Joe,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood from aboard an Amtrak train, published Tuesday. “But one of the things that’s important to know, and one of the reasons why, when I first got asked about this job I said no, is there is no inherent power in being vice president.”
Biden added that his legacy won’t be defined by public perception.
“‘What do you want?'” Biden recalled President Obama asking him about being vice president. “I said, ‘I want to be the last guy in the room.’ Every assignment he’s given me, I’ve not had to check back. I ran the Recovery Act — beginning, middle and end. I did the Iraq thing.”
Biden also noted that people took him seriously when he was seen as a possible presidential candidate.
“And by the way, the so-called Goofy Uncle Joe — if you notice, I beat every Republican in every poll when they thought I was running. You notice that my favorability was higher than anybody that’s running for office in either party,” Biden said.
