President Biden’s lingering regret and anger from when Democrats pushed him not to run in 2016 is fueling his determination to stay in the race in 2024, current and former Biden aides told Axios.

Why it matters: Several people close to Biden said they believe his bitterness toward former President Obama, and the congressional Democrats now trashing him, is making the president more determined to continue his campaign even as some of his own aides think an exit is inevitable.

• Many Obama advisers pressured Biden to not run in 2016 and Biden’s resentment over that episode has diminished Obama’s influence with Biden as the president contemplates his path forward.
• If Obama directly pushed Biden to not to run this time, Biden aides told Axios it could make Biden even more resolved to remain the nominee.
• A former Biden aide said: “Obama already used that chit in 2016 when his team lobbied him against running. You don’t get to do that more than once.”

Driving the news: When Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Biden felt guilty for not running himself and furious at the people who pushed him not to. He thought he could have beaten Trump in 2016, according to people who spoke with him afterward.

• Some Biden aides see parallels to the current situation.
• While Biden may bow to the extraordinary pressure from the party, his resentment from 2016 is fueling his determination to stay in the race as he is convinced he is the most electable candidate against Trump.
• Biden’s core team often tunes out their skeptics after winning the 2020 nomination and the better than expected 2022 midterms, far better than Obama did in his first midterms, they note.
• A Biden aide told Axios: “There have been countless moments during which we’re counted out by Washington and a wide range of Democrats, only to deliver unprecedented successes.”

The intrigue: Obama does not have close relationships with most of Biden’s inner circle, further limiting his influence.

• His strongest connection is with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, who is influential but not as personally close with Biden as other top aides.
• Obama isn’t in frequent contact with Biden either. The president told NBC News on Monday that he had not talked to the former president in “a couple weeks.”
• There is also tension between Michelle Obama and the First Family over the Bidens’ treatment of Hunter’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle–Michelle’s close friend.

The resentments from 2016 linger in the minds of Biden’s family too.

• Biden family members have expressed wariness of people who sided with Hillary Clinton before Biden had made up his mind in 2015.
• That includes some of Biden’s top aides now like Jake Sullivan, although Biden still selected him to be the youngest National Security Adviser in decades.

Flashback: When Obama and Biden connected on the phone after Trump won in 2016, a person familiar with the call recalled that Biden’s comments were unremarkable but his tone was “I told you so.”

• When Biden was weighing whether to run in the summer and fall of 2015, he had meetings with Obama’s top political hands — David Plouffe, David Axelrod, and David Simas.

While Biden could win a general election, they all told the then-vice president that winning the primary was remote given the late date and the strength of both Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

• Biden remained skeptical and felt that Clinton was vulnerable given her low trust numbers, but his trust numbers could also fall once he entered the race.
• After Trump defeated her, Biden ran into Simas and snapped: “Oh, trust doesn’t matter, huh?,” according to the “The Long Alliance,” a book about the Obama-Biden relationship.

Plouffe told the New York Times earlier this year that the “notion that there was a red carpet available that, you know, Barack Obama blocked is just not based in reality.”

• He added: “Joe Biden would have run for president for the third time, for the nomination, would not have succeeded, and would have never been president.”

What they’re saying: White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said that “President Biden is motivated by the same principles that have defined his life of public service, to ‘finish the work’ on behalf of the American people – having rich special interests pay their fair share in taxes, strengthening and expanding Social Security, restoring Roe, and bringing the country together.”

• Axelrod, Simas and spokespeople for Obama and Sullivan declined to comment.
• Plouffe did not respond to a request for comment.

Between the lines: Obama and Biden have a sincere friendship, but that emotional tie at times makes the dynamic even more fraught than the typically tense president-vice president relationship.

• Biden feels competitive with Obama and it has affected some of his biggest decisions, aides say.
• Behind closed doors when talking about his perceived accomplishments, the president has said variations of “Obama would be jealous,” aides say (the White House has denied this).

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who is close with the president, said on his show last week that “Joe Biden is deeply resentful of his treatment under not only the Obama staff but also the way he was pushed aside for Hillary Clinton.”

• Obama’s aides have long argued that Obama was merely a sounding board for Biden in 2015 and gave his candid advice, but did not push him aside.
• Obama was also concerned about Biden at the time given it was in the months after Beau Biden died and the vice president was very emotional.

The bottom line: Biden remembers things differently and it’s informing his decision-making now.

• In his interview last fall with special counsel Robert Hur, Biden recalled that in 2015, “a lot of people … were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president …. He just thought that [Clinton] had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did.”

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https://www.axios.com/2024/07/21/biden-obama-2024-president-drop-out