Monday 10 July 2023

American president Joe Biden quick to lose temper inside White House, often yells at aides

 


American president Joe Biden quick to lose temper inside White House, often yells at aides

By Edward Era Barbacena 


President Biden has displayed a hair-trigger temper with aides behind closed doors and is known for cursing out White House staffers, according to a new report — the latest to contradict the octogenarian’s carefully cultivated image as a folksy, kindly grandfather.

Current and former Biden aides told Axios the 80-year-old president has hurled insults such as “God dammit, how the f–- don’t you know this?!,” “Don’t f–-ing bulls— me!” and “Get the f–- out of here!”

Some say they are so fearful of the president’s wrath that they bring along colleagues to meetings as a kind of shield against Biden’s paint-stripping language.

“No one is safe,” not even senior aides, one administration official told the outlet.

In one particularly memorable exchange, Biden bore down on then-COVID czar and current White House chief of staff Jeff Zients in late 2021 for bungling the testing kit rollout for the Omicron variant.

The commander-in-chief will also angrily question West Wing staffers in an attempt to “stump” them, prodding them to brief him on topics in a conversational way that some have dubbed “speaking Biden.”

“If there is something that’s not in the brief, he’s going to find it,” Ted Kaufman, Biden’s chief of staff from his time as a US senator, told the outlet. “It’s not to embarrass people, it’s because he wants to get to the right decision. Most people who have worked for him like the fact that he challenges them and gets them to a better decision.”

“There’s no question that the Biden temper is for real,” added Chris Whipple, author of “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House.” “It may not be as volcanic as Bill Clinton’s, but it’s definitely there.”

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, now an MSNBC host, was quoted in Whipple’s book as telling Biden, “I know we have a really good, trusting relationship when you yell at me the first time.” The author noted that Psaki “wouldn’t have to wait long.”

Jeff Connaughton, Kaufman’s ex-chief of staff and a former Biden campaign aide, called the now-president an “egomaniacal autocrat” who was “determined to manage his staff through fear” in his 2012 book “The Payoff: Why Wall Street Wins.”

Connaughton reported in the book that Biden shouted at one aide to “Get the f–k out of the car” during his 2008 presidential campaign after the staffer told him it was “time to do some fundraising calls.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden reportedly flew into a rage last year when discussing his age with an acquaintance ahead of his re-election campaign launch, saying, “You think I don’t know how f—ing old I am?”

The president has lashed out at The Post when questioned about his alleged involvement in his son’s foreign business affairs — and once was caught on a hot mic calling Fox News White House reporter Peter Doocy a “stupid son of a bitch.”

A Politico report from 2021 also noted the president’s frequent use of profanity, favoring “f—” and “bulls—” in West Wing meetings — even while trying to watch his words around women.

During his time as vice president, Biden’s big mouth also came to the fore — most notably in 2010 when he was overheard telling President Barack Obama that the Affordable Care Act was a “big f—king deal.”


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