Biden biographer questions if even Obama could get president to pull out of campaign: ‘Fraught relationship’
President Biden biographer Chris Whipple recently disclosed he doesn’t’ believe that former President Obama could convince Biden to abandon his re-election bid.
In a recent interview with NewsNation, Whipple – who wrote "The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House" – said it’s "not quite true" that Obama could influence Biden to leave office amid growing calls within the Democratic Party for the president to step aside from the race.
The president "has a chip on his shoulder," the author stated in the interview, noting that tension between him and Obama’s team might prevent the former president’s advice from getting through to Biden. Whipple said of the two men: "It’s a fraught relationship, for sure."
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Whipple’s statements followed reports that Obama has been influencing calls to have Biden be replaced as the Democratic presidential nominee since his disastrous debate performance last month.
Some in the media, like MSNBC co-anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski speculated that Obama is pushing prominent liberals to ditch Biden. Scarborough stated this week, "One thing that we do have to underline here — just so viewers can follow what’s going on behind the scenes — is the Biden campaign and many Democratic officials do believe that Barack Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this."
They also accused Obama of influencing actor and Biden donor George Clooney to write a New York Times op-ed calling on Biden to let another candidate have a shot.
"I just talked about reports that Obama is worried that Biden can’t win," Whipple told network host Elizabeth Vargas on Friday, adding, "The relationship between these two men is really complicated. A lot of people have been saying ‘The only person who could tell Biden to step aside is former President Obama.’ Not quite true."
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The author, who spent years speaking to President Biden’s aides and allies for his book, acknowledged that the two leaders are "truly close" to one another, stating, "They bonded when Beau Biden was dying with that brain tumor, and… Obama really took Joe Biden under his wing."
Still, he mentioned there is a rift between them that could compel Biden to dismiss the former president's advice during the Democratic Party’s current post-debate chaos.
According to Whipple, Biden sees himself as an outsider among Obama’s typical circles. He told Vargas, "He’s always felt that he was the Syracuse law guy, and all of Obama’s people were Harvard and Yale, and they looked down on him, and that he, of course, put his finger on the scale for Hillary Clinton in 2016. So, it’s a fraught relationship, for sure."
Despite the pressure to leave the race, Biden has insisted he is committed to beating Trump in November.