According to the New York Times, former President Barack Obama tried to dissuade his vice president Joe Biden from a run at the White House in 2020.
“You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t,” Obama reportedly told Biden prior to the latter’s launch of his campaign in April. The Times reported that Biden responded by telling Obama he could never forgive himself if he turned down a second shot at defeating President Trump.
Obama, who has not given Biden the endorsement he so badly needs to keep ahead of the pack of competitors closing in, also reportedly urged Biden over lunch to recruit younger aides, because Biden’s closest advisers are “too old and out of touch with the current political climate,” the Times said.
If the gaffe-prone, aging Biden, whose poll numbers have been slipping, does manage to secure the Democrat Party nomination and get the opportunity to take on the more vigorous Donald Trump, he very likely will wish he had taken Obama’s advice not to.