Members of Joe BidenJohn’s team is said to be “less scared” of him, which has led advisers to carefully organize their briefings to ensure they don’t “annoy him”, according to a senior official.
Biden united group of advisors and press officers worked tirelessly to portray a positive public image of the oldest president in U.S. history.
In his first two years in office, he gave the fewest interviews since Ronald Reagan’s presidency – with critics suggesting he faced fewer moments of public accountability for his comments and actions.
All of this was revealed during Thursday’s debate, where the 81-year-old stumbled along the way first televised debate of the 2024 elections against his more coherent Republican rival donald trump.
Following her disastrous performance, family members, including first lady Jill Biden and son Hunter Biden, blamed Biden’s campaign team during a meeting at Camp David on Sunday.
But behind closed doors, the president is said to be a far cry from the shy, soft-spoken man who appeared on stage.
Instead, an anonymous senior administration official said Political that Biden often unleashes his wrath on the team, so much so that the aides who meet the presidentHis formal briefings have been known to tiptoe around topics that might spark white-hot fury in him during meetings.
“It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, it’ll irritate him’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’” they said.
“Because he is not a pleasant person to be around when he is being briefed. It’s very difficult and people are less afraid of it”, continued the person in charge.
Sources also told the outlet that Biden seeks advice almost exclusively from a handful of senior aides, with his inner circle growing increasingly larger as he becomes more difficult to deal with in day-to-day business.
“They’ve been digging deeper into the bunker for months,” said an anonymous Democratic strategist Political.
This is not the first time that Biden has been accused of losing patience with his team.
Jeff Connaughton, a former Biden campaign and Senate adviser, previously wrote in his 2012 book The reward that Biden, as a senator, was an “egomaniacal autocrat… determined to manage his people through fear.” He wrote that Biden once told him to “get the hell out of the car” when asked to make some fundraising calls.
Ted Kaufman, Biden’s former chief of staff when he represented Delaware in the Senate, countered that the president’s approach gets the best of his advisers.
“If there is something that is not in the briefing, he will find it,” said Kaufmman Axes last year.
“It’s not to shame people, it’s because he wants to make the right decision. Most people who have worked for him like the fact that he challenges them and pushes them to make a better decision,” he added.
After last week’s debate, top Democratic donor John Morgan publicly appealed and demanded the firing of three top Biden officials: Ron Klain, Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer.
“[Biden’s] the advisors failed him,” he wrote in X on Sunday. “The format was a disaster for him and an advantage for Trump. He practiced too much and was exhausted… who wouldn’t be?
Biden, however, refuted that the trio was to blame, according to another source close to the matter.
