Joe Biden may name-drop Barack Obama every chance he gets, but it looks like the man he served as vice president under is quietly supporting a different candidate behind the scenes, according to a new report from The Hill.
It appears that Barack Obama has “gone to bat” for millionaire Senator Elizabeth Warren in talks with wealthy donors who have been reluctant to support her because of her anti-Wall Street and anti-wealth rhetoric. If Warren becomes the nominee, Obama has urged these wealthy Democrats to fall in line and give her 100 percent support, not just 1/1024 percent.
Obama hasn’t officially endorsed Warren and says he’ll remain neutral until the party selects their candidate, but he’s been vouching for her in ways that he simply hasn’t for his former vice president, Joe Biden. Nobody believes Biden’s story that he specifically asked Obama not to endorse him so he could earn the nomination on his own steam, but there have been multiple reports that Obama actually urged Joe not to run. Obama was also the reason Joe didn’t run in 2016.
This report comes on the heels of Obama’s recent (and absurd) public comment that women are indisputably better leaders than men.
If Obama is trying to boost Warren behind the scenes, it’s easy to see how this could be seen as a major insult to Joe Biden, who, he is always ready to remind us, was hand-picked by Obama to be his running mate. The strength in Biden’s national poll numbers comes from the overwhelming support he gets from African-American Democrats.
Having been Obama’s vice president has given Biden an edge over the other old and white Democrats running for president when it comes to earning support from African Americans. If Obama is quietly boosting someone else, that might fracture Biden’s firewall of black support.
“He obviously thinks she’s very smart,” one Democratic donor told The Hill. “He thinks her policy ideas matter. And I think he sees her running the campaign with the most depth.”
Warren has been critical of Obama in the past, and has even distanced herself from him. Last week, over 200 Obama staffers from his campaigns and administration announced their support of her campaign. Joe Biden did get the endorsement of former Secretary of State John Kerry… which I guess is something.
I wonder if Joe Biden is planning to make any calls to his BFF Barack anytime soon. I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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