In a remarkable explanation of how presidents and their vice presidents keep the peace in public, Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that he never challenges President Obama in public.
In a discussion at George Washington University with former Vice President Walter Mondale, Biden used the discussion over killing Osama bin Laden as an example of his close relationship with Obama.
Biden said that during the fateful Cabinet meeting, he didn’t speak out, waiting until he and the president were alone in the Oval Office to tell the commander-in-chief to attack.
His comments about his relationship with Obama are at the end of this video.
“But it would have been a mistake, imagine if I would have said in front of everyone, ‘Don’t go,’ or ‘Go,’ and his decision was a different decision. It undercuts that relationship,” said Biden.
He added: “So I never, on a difficult issue, never say what I think, finally, until I go up in the Oval with him alone because it’s not a good thing, with the relationship you had with President Carter, and I have with the president, to be in a position we’re at.
“And sometimes we do differ. Sometimes I go up and say, ‘Mr. President I think you should turn right or go straight and he said, ‘No, I’m going left.’ He’s the president. But that’s the only way it works.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
