President Joe Biden, speaking at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee on Tuesday, revealed he never set foot inside the residential portion of the White House in the eight years he spent as Barack Obama’s vice president.
The moment: According to Biden, the presidential living quarters, and the service that goes with it, were unfamiliar to him.
- “I get up in the morning and look at Jill and say: Where the hell are we?” Biden told CNN host Anderson Cooper during the town hall, eliciting laughter from the audience.
- “I had been in the Oval Office a hundred times as vice president or more — more than that, every morning for the initial meetings — but I had never been up in the residence,” he said.
Say what? Cooper expressed disbelief that Biden had never seen the former First Family’s private home, prompting Biden to repeat that he had only seen the business rooms in the White House.
- Biden also said he preferred the vice president’s house at Observatory Circle, where he allegedly had a penchant for swimming in the nude.
Frenemies: The president’s confession contradicts some media portrayals of Obama and Biden’s supposedly close relationship.
- The revelation also lends credence to speculation that Obama didn’t hold his former vice president and running mate in the highest regard.
- Obama famously declined to endorse Biden until late in the primary season and reportedly made disparaging remarks about the long-time Delaware senator.
- “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up,” Obama once said about his second-in-command, according to an anonymous Democrat speaking to Politico.
