Former President Barack Obama has reportedly told allies that Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance has made his bid to win back the White House even tougher than it had been previously.
The Washington Post reports that Obama gave a harsher private assessment of Biden’s chances of re-election following the debate despite publicly trying to ease concerns by tweeting that “bad debates happen.”
The outlet reported that Obama “spoke directly with Biden by phone after last Thursday’s debate to offer his support as a sounding board and private counselor for his embattled former vice president,” according to WaPo.
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It remains unclear how much or whether Obama pressed Biden at all on how the debate affected his viability as the party nominee.
“President Biden is grateful for President Obama’s unwavering support since the very start of this campaign as both a powerful messenger to voters and a trusted adviser directly to the president,” Lauren Hitt, the Biden campaign spokesperson told the Post in a statement.
The Post also reported that Obama “has long harbored worries” about beating Donald Trump for a second time.
In recent months, Obama has been “repeatedly warning Biden” about the threat a potential Trump victory poses and even spoke to allies about his concerns over the state of the race, the report said.
Obama’s offer to be a private counselor to Biden suggests he would be a key figure in getting the president to step aside, with many Democrats hoping he could assist in an intervention and try to convince Biden to drop out of the race.
However, as The Daily Beast reported last week, there are concerns within the party over how much room Obama has in his relationship with Biden to make such an intervention.
“Here’s the reason why Obama, hypothetically, wouldn’t do that,” Doug Wilson, a Biden 2020 campaign alumnus and longtime North Carolina Democratic strategist, told The Daily Beast. “Obama in 2016 had the same conversation with Joe Biden because Joe Biden was going to run” for president.
Instead, Obama conveyed to Biden that he couldn’t support him with Hillary Clinton as the frontrunner.
The wound still lingers on, sources familiar with the relationship say, making an intervention even trickier.
The relationship between the Obamas and the Bidens has also reportedly been strained even further with Michelle Obama unhappy with the way the family cast aside her close friend Kathleen Buhle following her split from Hunter Biden.
That is said to be the reason why Michelle Obama hasn’t been campaigning for Biden’s re-election.
