Barack Obama, the former US president, sounded the alarm about Joe Biden’s ailing re-election bid almost a year before polling day, warning his former vice-president’s staff “your campaign is a mess”, a new book reveals.
The intervention came amid tensions between the Obama and Biden camps as they braced for a tough fight against Donald Trump. In the end, the ageing Biden withdrew from the race in favor of his vice-president, Kamala Harris, who was defeated by Trump.
Obama’s prescient anxiety is captured in the upcoming book 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America by journalists Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf, a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian.
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The authors describe how Biden, trailing in opinion polls, kept hearing complaints from congressional Democrats that his campaign lacked a presence in their district. His staff in Wilmington, Delaware, were “despondent” and the president confided in one aide: “I have a leadership problem on the campaign.”
On 20 November 2023, Biden received a call from Obama wishing him a happy 81st birthday, and invited his former boss to the White House for lunch. Obama remained “slightly incredulous” that Biden was running for a second term, the book says.
When the pair met for lunch in December, Obama argued that dividing the campaign leadership between Wilmington and Washington was not suitable for the fast decision-making required by a modern presidential election.
“After the lunch,” the authors write, “Obama did not leave the White House right away. He stopped to visit with Biden’s senior staff, many of whom used to work for him, and shared his account of what he and Biden had discussed. Obama was more blunt with the staff. ‘Your campaign is a mess,’ he told them.”
Biden took heed of the warning and, in January, ordered the White House deputy chief of staff, Jen O’Malley Dillon, to fix his campaign. Soon after, Biden announced that O’Malley Dillon would move to Wilmington to become the campaign chair, with longtime adviser Mike Donilon remaining in Washington as chief strategist.
But Obama was resented by some in the Biden inner circle. Earlier in 2023, he had filmed videos to help the president with online fundraising. “In one clip, Obama reminded Democrats he had ‘won a couple of these’ elections, causing some of Biden’s aides to roll their eyes,” the book reports.
“There was a lot of overlap among aides to Obama and Biden, but to Biden loyalists, Obama was a prick. They thought he and his inner circle had constantly disrespected and mistreated Biden, despite his loyal service as vice president.”
Dawsey, Pager and Arnsdorf add: “They felt vindicated when for the first time during Biden’s presidency, Obama publicly returned to the White House and began by saying ‘Thank you, Vice President Biden.’ Obama was quick to claim he was joking, but to Biden’s stalwarts it was merely the latest example of Obama’s arrogance.”
Biden abandoned his bid for re-election after a disastrous debate performance, giving Harris just 107 days to run in what was the shortest presidential campaign in modern history. The book recounts how Trump survived criminal investigations, assassination attempts and Republican challengers to take on and beat Harris in the election.
Before, during and after the campaign, Trump has called Biden “crooked”, “a dummy”, “feeble”, “grossly incompetent”, “a loser”, “sleepy” and “the worst president in the history of our country”.
But when Biden called to congratulate him on his victory and invite him to visit the White House, Trump sang a different tune, according to the book. “In another life,” he told the president, “we would be friends and go golfing.”
