'Shoot. Me. Now': Barack Obama Thought Joe Biden Was 'Condescending' & 'Offensive' During First Meeting, Wanted To Replace Running Mate With Hillary Clinton
Aug. 30 2022, Published 7:00 p.m. ET
No bromance here! Barack Obama's true feelings about Joe Biden have been exposed, and RadarOnline.com has learned the two men didn't think highly of each other upon first meeting.
Biden, now 79, was "slightly annoyed" by the headlines that circulated about Obama after he scored a Senate seat in Illinois and arrived in Washington in 2005. Biden at the time was a Senator for Delaware.
The feeling was mutual when the now-president first approached Obama, 61, all those years ago. Their tense interaction nearly 20 years ago has been documented in a new book, The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
Biden reportedly offended Obama when he invited him to dinner at a casual Italian restaurant on Capitol Hill. As he put it, the eatery was "nothing fancy," which sent Obama into a tailspin.
"We can go to a nice place, I can afford it," he allegedly quipped back.
Biden "detected more than a hint of arrogance and a hefty serving of presumptuousness," according to the bombshell report. However, Obama had stronger feelings about his first brush with his future running mate.
He thought Biden was "old-school" and believed his dinner invite was "condescending at best, borderline offensive at worst." When they joined forces on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Obama noticed how much Biden liked the sound of his own voice.
The book claims that as Obama saw it, Biden tended to "ramble" and "clearly loving every minute of it." His voice allegedly got so annoying that Obama handed a staffer a note that read, "Shoot. Me. Now."
Biden dug himself even further into a hole with the younger politician when he called Obama the "first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy" during a 2007 interview in the New York Observer.
While Biden wasn't his favorite, Obama knew he'd appeal to white voters if he picked him as his running mate instead of Hillary Clinton.
However, according to the book, Obama was leaning toward Clinton as his Vice President after failing in the 2010 midterms. Upon learning his plans, Biden allegedly became "distraught."
Despite putting on smiles for the camera, RadarOnline.com has learned there were tensions brewing behind the scenes.
"The biggest insult to Biden was how little his input mattered to Obama's inner circle," insiders claim in the book. "Biden could hardly shake the suspicion that Obama's eggheads saw him as a foolish distraction they couldn't fully trust."
Obama's jokes behind Biden's back didn't stop after he exited his presidency.
Biden allegedly "bristled" at allegations the ex-president made when the older politician stepped into the position of commander in chief, alleging that Joe was "finishing the job" that he started.
The new book, written by Gabriel Debenedetti, promises to pull more of the veil off of the duo's alleged fake bromance when it hits shelves on September 13.