Thursday, May 9, 2013

How Much Time Do the President and Joe Biden Spend Together?

According to the Vice President, he spends four or five hours every day with the president.

From a Rolling Stone interview:
Q.Bush and Cheney and Clinton and Gore famously had their weekly lunches together. Do you have regular, unstructured one-on-one time with the president? 
A. Matter of fact, I just had lunch with the president. I spend an average of four to five hours a day with him, every single day. When I first got asked to do this job, I said, "No, thank you. I'll do anything I can to help you, but I'm not interested." Then he said, "Go home and talk it over with your family." When the actual offer came forward, he asked me what portfolio do I want, and I said, "I don't want a portfolio; I don't want to be Gore" – who was a great vice president – "I don't want to be Cheney. You said you wanted me here to help you govern, and I have a lot of experience." I wanted a commitment that I get to be the last guy in the room on every major decision – not generally, but specifically. My job is to accommodate what he wants done and, internally, to make my cases for what I think we should be doing different. So it's been a really good relationship, and everybody knows that – around here and around the world. Think about it: Even our critics have never said that when I speak, no one doubts that I speak for the president. I speak for the president because of the relationship. And the only way that works is if you're around all the time. Literally, every meeting he has, I'm in. You don't have to wonder what the other guy's thinking; I don't have to guess where the president's going. So it's been really great. Once a week, no matter what, we sit down for between 35 minutes and as long as an hour and a half, depending on what we have to say. 
We talk about everything, and our wives are friends. Today, we talked about foreign policy at some length, we talked about China, we talked about Russia and we talked about Syria. So that's more than you wanted to know, but this is the nature of the relationship, and that's why it works.
Looks like the Biden PR machine is getting ready for a 2016 run.


3 comments:

  1. I didn't think it was possible for people to be so stupid as to re-elect Obama, yet they did it anyway.

    If we still have a country worth preserving in three years, replacing Obama with Biden (or Hillary) would be the final nail in the coffin.

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    Replies
    1. I knew there were people stupid enough when they reelected Bush.

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  2. Don't know why he's bothering actually aprt from the ego trip, hillary got the democratic side wrapped up.

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