President Joe Biden has bragged to his staff behind closed doors when he has a moment he thinks his former boss, former President Barack Obama, might be envious of.
Biden, whose aides reportedly felt that Obama did not value Biden’s insight on foreign policy and Congress when he was vice president, would tout that “Obama would be jealous” of certain legislation he has passed in his first term in office, according to Axios.
The relationship between the two presidents has always appeared friendly and respectful on the surface, with Obama often praising Biden publicly. But Biden’s comment hints at an underlying rivalry between the pair, who share some of the same staff.
“Joe and the administration are essentially finishing the job,” Obama told the New York Times in 2021. “Ninety percent of the folks who were there in my administration, they are continuing and building on the policies we talked about.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates rejected claims of any sort of feud between the pair, saying the duo speak frequently.
“We recognize that the actual level of drama in this White House is insufficient to meet some reporting quotas, but President Biden does not make such comments in private,” Bates told the Washington Examiner. “As President Biden has said, President Obama is family to him. In addition to their personal bond, they agree overwhelmingly on the issues facing the country, including building an economy that works from the bottom-up and middle-out, protecting our critical freedoms, and opposing attacks on our democracy. There are no stronger supporters of President Biden’s leadership and agenda than President Obama, his team, and alumni of the Obama-Biden Administration — many of whom serve during this presidency. And the President talks to both former President Obama and President Clinton often.”
The recently released transcript of Biden’s interview with then-special counsel Robert Hur over the president’s handling of classified documents revealed the relationship was especially rocky in the 2016 elections, in which Obama supported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton instead of Biden.
“A lot of people … were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president,” Biden told Hur. “He just thought that [Clinton] had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did.”
Biden later told his staff he believed he would have beaten Donald Trump in 2016.
Biden’s perceived rivalry with the former president has even affected how he governs on key matters, including foreign policy, defense, and legislative victories such as the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which involved funding in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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One of Biden’s biggest shifts from Obama was his withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Biden had encouraged Obama to withdraw troops from the Middle Eastern country as early as 2009, but the former president refused. Biden withdrew the troops just a few months into his tenure in the Oval Office, and it resulted in the deaths of 13 service members.
Obama is expected to stump for Biden on the campaign trail ahead of the 2024 elections. Biden secured the delegates for the Democratic nomination for president last week.
Naomi Lim contributed to this report.
