After Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 election, Joe Biden had a conversation with President Barack Obama and essentially hit him with an ‘I told you so.’
Obama famously backed Clinton as his defacto third-term candidate over Biden that year, eschewing the loyalty that his then-Vice President had shown throughout their two terms in the White House.
According to a new book by authors Hunter Walker and Luppe B. Luppen, titled The Truce: Progressives, Centrists, and the Future of the Democratic Party, Obama and Biden were watching election returns when it became obvious that Donald Trump was going to defeat Clinton.
The mood, according to excerpts obtained by the Daily Mail, turned “mournful.”
Biden reportedly picked up the phone and called Obama and, according to multiple sources, told him: “Boss I told you. People just don’t like her.”
Vice President Joe Biden gave a frank assessment of what went wrong with Hillary Clinton 's 2016 campaign on the phone with President Barack Obama on election night. https://t.co/yweH8Wevgw #BreakingNews #Breaking #News pic.twitter.com/sJ2dzKLfNB
— Patriot Pointman 🇺🇸 (@PatriotPointman) January 19, 2024
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Biden: People Just Don’t Like Hillary
Biden’s assessment that people “just don’t like” Hillary Clinton is an understatement yes, but likely also the last time he spoke the truth about a fellow Democrat.
The statement cements the fact that Biden, who always campaigned as the likable ‘Scranton Joe’ or ‘Uncle Joe’, a blue-collar man of the people, valued being a people person as a political tactic.
And he was right – Clinton’s unfavorable public perception played a significant role in her loss to Trump. But it was not her only problem.
But we all know why Obama picked Hillary over Biden, correct? For all her many personality faults and obvious personal scandals, she’s intelligent. Biden just isn’t. pic.twitter.com/WGMYN3X9hu
— kaitlin (@thefactualprep) August 14, 2020
The new book also shines a light on how Biden knew something was amiss after making an appearance on Clinton’s behalf in Wisconsin, a swing state she lost by a slim margin and one in which she opted not to campaign herself.
“It just didn’t feel right,” Biden said after the event.
For all the chatter that Biden is the screw-up in the Democrat Party, even he knew that Clinton couldn’t and wouldn’t win in 2016. Obama, by contrast, was blissfully unaware.
RELATED: Hillary Clinton Says Take Trump ‘At His Word’ That He Would Be a ‘Dictator On Day One’
Obama Cleared The Path For Joe In 2020
According to the authors of The Truce, where once he had forced Joe out of the presidential race, Obama and his team helped drag Biden to the nomination over Bernie Sanders in 2020.
Sanders often denounced the Democratic primary process and suggested it was rigged in Clinton’s favor.
And, according to the book, Obama was involved in “the kind of backroom power play that Sanders and progressives might see as corrupt” by nudging former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) to get out of the race, clearing a path for Biden.
Or maybe it was because Obama convinced the other candidates to resign and back Biden? Or because black property owners dominate dem institutions in the south and they found his message too radical? Or because Bernie was incapable of working black churches and radio shows? idk
— dave, flying letter📨 (@dbaten3) January 19, 2024
“This was something far bigger, the party’s most beloved figure working to end the primary and stop the progressive revolution,” the authors wrote, noting that nearly everybody declined to comment on Obama’s power grab due to it being a bitter and divisive topic.
The Truce is set to hit bookshelves this coming Tuesday and promises to reveal how “the Democratic Party had long been at war with itself” before banding together to defeat Trump in 2020.