From memes about his bromance with former President Barack Obama to his appearance on “Parks and Recreation”, President Joe Biden generally has a reputation for being affable.
However, Axios reported this week that behind the “kindly uncle” persona, the Commander-in-Chief has a “a quick-trigger temper” in private – and that some aides even avoid meeting with him.
“The president’s admonitions include: ‘God dammit, how the f**k don’t you know this?!,’ ‘Don’t f**king bullsh*t me!’ and ‘Get the f**k out of here!’ – according to current and former Biden aides who have witnessed and been on the receiving end of such outbursts,” said the report.
There is prior evidence that Biden is found dropping the f-bomb and other profanity now and then. In October, Audacy reported that he was caught on a hot mic saying “nobody f**ks with a Biden,” and Biden was also caught on a hot mike calling Fox News’ Peter Doocy a “stupid son of a b***h,” last year.
He’s also been known to drop the phrase “lying dog-faced pony soldier” in public, which Audacy explained more here.
Jeff Connaughton, a former Biden campaign and Senate aide also wrote about Biden’s temper in “The Payoff: Why Wall Street Wins” from 2012. He called Biden an “egomaniacal autocrat … determined to manage his staff through fear.”
However, several people close to the president view it as an extension of his high expectations and demand for meticulous work. Axios even said staffers view being yelled at by Biden as a sort of initiation.
“Being yelled at by the president has become an internal initiation ceremony in this White House, aides say – if Biden doesn’t yell at you, it could be a sign he doesn’t respect you,” said the report.
For example, Chris Whipple, wrote in his book, “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House” that former White House press secretary Jen Psaki told Biden “I’ll know we have a really good, trusting relationship when you yell at me the first time.”
Biden aides also recalled the president raging at Jeff Zients when he was the administration’s “COVID czar” over a shortage of testing kits. Zients is now Biden’s chief of staff. A spokesperson for Zients told Axios that they would not speak about internal conversations and the White House declined to comment.
“Most people who have worked for him like the fact that he challenges them and gets them to a better decision,” said Ted Kaufman, Biden’s longtime chief of staff when the future president represented Delaware in the Senate.
Though Axios’ source said “no one is safe” from Biden’s alleged rages, some staffers wish he would show this aggressive side a bit more in public.
“Some Biden aides think the president would be better off occasionally displaying his temper in public as a way to assuage voter concerns that the 80-year-old president is disengaged and too old for the office,” said the report.
Only 32% of people who participated in an ABC/Washington Post poll earlier this year said they thought Biden, now 80 years old, has the “mental sharpness” it takes to serve as president. More than half (54%) said that the GOP frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, has the “mental sharpness” to be president, although he is also a senior citizen at 77 years old.
Trump is well known for his own aggressive comments. He frequently comes up with belittling nicknames for his political opponents (including “SleepyCreepy Joe” for Biden) and, has called his advisor Kellyanne Conway’s estranged husband an “unattractive loser” and levelled more public insults at others, even those in his own party.
While FiveThirtyEight data updated Tuesday showed that Biden’s favorability rating was higher than Trump’s, recently released Florida Atlantic University poll results indicated that the Trump could beat the incumbent in a presidential election.
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