Obama’s New Book Describes Biden’s ‘Lack of a Filter’ And His Strengths

The former president says he chose Joe Biden as his running mate because he was experienced and ‘cared about ordinary people’.

Then-US Vice President Joe Biden, right speaks, watched by then-US President Barack Obama, in 2016. Picture: AFP

President Obama viewed Joe Biden in 2008 as lacking a filter and “happy to share whatever popped into his head,” but he chose the then-senator as his running mate because he was “decent, honest, and loyal,” the former president writes in his new memoir.

In “A Promised Land,” which will be publicly available on Tuesday, Mr. Obama offers candid reflections on the historic nature of his presidency, race and the political climate. The first of two planned volumes, the 768-page tome also offers fresh insights into Mr. Obama’s decision to select Mr. Biden as his running mate and their occasional disagreements over foreign policy.

An advance copy of the book, which focuses primarily on the 2008 election and Mr. Obama’s first term in office, was provided to The Wall Street Journal by publisher Penguin Random House. It comes after Mr. Biden was elected the 46th president at the end of a campaign with President Trump that often focused on the legacy of the Obama administration.

Mr. Obama characterises Mr. Biden as in some ways his political opposite, a factor he ultimately determined would help to offset reservations among his opponents about his presidency. He says he thought Republicans in Congress would be willing to negotiate with Mr. Biden.

Barack Obama's new book. Picture: WSJ

“One of the reasons I’d chosen Joe to act as an intermediary — in addition to his Senate experience and legislative acumen — was my awareness that in [Mitch] McConnell’s mind, negotiations with the vice president didn’t inflame the Republican base in quite the same way that any appearance of co-operation with (Black, Muslim socialist) Obama was bound to do,” Mr. Obama writes.

Mr. Obama recalls some of his reservations about asking Mr. Biden to join his ticket in 2008. Mr. Biden was 19 years his senior and a stalwart in the Senate, Mr. Obama recalls, while he was running as a Washington outsider. Describing his persona as “temperamentally cool and collected,” Mr. Obama writes that Mr. Biden was “a man without inhibitions, happy to share whatever popped into his head.” “In a town filled with people who liked to hear themselves talk, he had no peer,” Mr. Obama recalls. “His lack of a filter periodically got him in trouble, as when during the primaries, he had pronounced me ‘articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,’ a phrase surely meant as a compliment, but interpreted by some as suggesting that such characteristics in a Black man were noteworthy.” Mr. Obama says he concluded that Mr. Biden’s occasional gaffes were “trivial compared to his strengths” and that the latter’s decades in public office would complement his own relative inexperience in national politics.

Then-US President Barack Obama hugs then-US Vice President Joe Biden after the President delivered his farewell address in 2017. Picture: AFP

“I liked the fact that Joe would be more than ready to serve as president if something happened to me — and that it might reassure those who still worried I was too young,” Mr. Obama writes. “What mattered most, though, was what my gut told me — that Joe was decent, honest, and loyal. I believed that he cared about ordinary people, and that when things got tough, I could trust him. I wouldn’t be disappointed.” He later shares that Mr. Biden voiced misgivings about the troop surge in Afghanistan that began in 2009, advising Mr. Obama against wading into “a dangerous quagmire” without a clear strategy. Mr. Obama interpreted Mr. Biden’s scepticism as born in part from feeling “burned” by his support for the Iraq War years earlier.

Mr. Obama also writes that Mr. Biden expressed scepticism over plans for the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May 2011, suggesting the president weigh “the enormous consequences of failure” and consider holding off until more definitive intelligence was available.

“As had been true in every major decision I’d made as president,” Mr. Obama writes, “I appreciated Joe’s willingness to buck the prevailing mood and ask tough questions, often in the interest of giving me the space I needed for my own internal deliberations.” “As the helicopters took off, Joe placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed,” Mr. Obama recalls. “’Congratulations, boss,’ he said.” The memoir closes in the run-up to the 2012 election. Mr. Obama addresses Mr. Trump’s rise in national politics, which he says was made possible by millions of Americans who were “spooked by a Black man in the White House.” He attributes Mr. Trump’s popularity with the Republican base to the real estate mogul repeatedly pushing a conspiracy theory about Mr. Obama’s birthplace. He also criticises the media for giving Mr. Trump a platform to air the claims.

“It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted,” Mr. Obama writes. “Which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president. For millions of Americans spooked by a Black man in the White House, he promised an elixir for their racial anxiety.” The Trump White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. Mr. Obama says he had not met Mr. Trump at the time. His impression of the man who would follow him in the White House was informed by Mr. Trump’s pursuit of the national spotlight, which Mr. Obama boils down to “a TV personality who marketed himself and his brand as the pinnacle of capitalist success and gaudy consumption.” He writes that in 2010, Mr. Trump phoned senior Obama adviser David Axelrod to suggest he be put in charge of plugging the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. According to Mr. Obama, Mr. Trump also said he would be willing to build “a beautiful ballroom” on the White House grounds. Both of Mr. Trump’s overtures were rejected.

The book, which took 2 1/2 years longer to complete than expected, is Mr. Obama’s third. It follows the 2018 memoir “Becoming” by former first lady Michelle Obama, which sold over 14 million copies worldwide in all formats.

The Wall Street Journal