Obama: I would never have dumped
Biden
By Justin Sink - 11/07/13 06:57 PM
EST
President Obama said Thursday he
would have told campaign aides "there is no way that I'm not running again
with Joe Biden" in 2012 — had he been asked.
The president's remarks came on
the heels of the book "Double Down," in which journalists Mark
Halperin and John Heilemann reported that then-White House chief of staff Bill
Daley, spooked by the president’s drooping poll numbers in the fall of 2011,
ordered campaign staffers to poll and focus-group the impact of switching Biden
for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The president, asked in an NBC News interview whether he knew his campaign was researching the idea, said
that during his reelection campaign, he was in charge of two million federal
employees, as well as a sprawling campaign staff.
"People do all kinds of
stuff," Obama said. "Some of it, they clear with me, sometimes
they're tryin' to figure somethin' out particularly on the political side. And
I'm not somebody who delves into polling and all that data."
But the president said he could
"say for certain" that if he had been approached with the idea, he
would have shot it down.
"I genuinely believe that he
has been one of the best vice presidents in our history," Obama told NBC News.
"He also happens to be a
friend. He also happens to be one of my most important advisors on domestic,
foreign policy. I like him. When my back's up against the wall, he has my
back."
The president said that he spoke
with Biden after the report surfaced, and told him that he wouldn't "be
here if it weren't for the support that I've had from Joe Biden."
"It's one of the best
decisions that I've ever made was selecting him as vice president," Obama
added.
NBC News
NBC
News is a subsidiary of NBC.
Note: NBCUniversal is
a subsidiary of NBC.
Jeff
Zucker was the president & CEO for NBCUniversal,
an executive producer for the NBC
Nightly News, and is a director at the Robin
Hood Foundation.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Robin Hood Foundation.
George Soros
is the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Tom
Brokaw was a director at the Robin
Hood Foundation, and an anchor for the NBC
Nightly News.
Brian Williams is
a director at the Robin Hood Foundation,
and an anchor for the NBC Nightly News.
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