According to a recent report, there is quite the rivalry between current president Joe Biden, and former president Barack Obama. Two Biden aides who spoke with Axios discussed how President Biden compares himself often to Obama in private; part of a years-long ‘rivalry’ between the two.
“Obama would be jealous,” Biden has reportedly said, “when speaking about a perceived accomplishment,” one aide said. Other aides have complained that “Obama and his team did not fully appreciate Biden’s experience with foreign policy, Congress and grip-and-grin politicking — and were disrespectful,” the outlet published.
“The Obama people thought Biden would suck as president,” one former Biden aide told Axios. “They didn’t think he’d be organized enough to execute.”
“We do have too many Obama people who don’t care about Joe Biden. It’s about them,” a former White House official said.
“When people say, ‘This is what worked for Obama,’ their first response is often, ‘We’re not Obama,'” a “senior Democrat” reportedly said, referring to Biden’s staff. Fox News reports how the alleged rivalry is not new knowledge:
The disagreements between Biden and Obama go back more than a decade, with books and interviews from the Obama era revealing significant policy conflicts between the two.
An excerpt from “The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore Foreign Policy After Trump” by Politico’s Alexander Ward revealed a disagreement that took place behind closed doors between Obama and Biden when Russian forces invaded Crimea and later annexed the peninsula, making it a part of Russia.
“The United States might have done more had Barack Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, been in charge. Russia should ‘pay in blood and money’ for its actions, Biden told his boss as the 2014 invasion began. Obama disagreed, but he made Biden his effective ambassador to Ukraine during the crisis.”