During Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, we were treated to reports galore from news outlets and political insiders alike alerting us as to the “refreshing” change Biden would bring to the White House should he be elected president.
Gone would be the antagonism between the Oval Office and the media that Biden claimed was a big problem under then-President Donald Trump’s administration. Respect would be restored between the two institutions we were also told by Biden’s staunchest defenders including Biden himself.
We were also informed that Biden would bring an even temperament to the office after four years of Trump putting his emotions out there on full display — the good, the bad, and everything in between.
People who had studied Biden’s five-plus decades of public service closely, however, predicted that none of that would actually happen, and once Biden took office it didn’t take long for them to be proven right.
Not only did Biden studiously avoid formal solo press conferences for months after being sworn in, but when he has interacted with the press, sometimes his true colors have shown, such as the instance in 2022 when Biden referred to Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy as a “stupid son of a b*tch” in a revealing moment caught on hot mic.
More recently, Biden lashed out at another reporter for asking what he believed was a “dumb question” about reports surrounding allegations made by a Ukraine FBI informant about Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The Biden administration has also been known to freeze out reporters they don’t like from his public appearances, hardly the actions of a presidential team who promised to respect the freedom of the press.
Beyond Biden breaking his campaign pledge to the mainstream media have been the scattered reports over the years of Biden’s explosive temper, something which was detailed extensively in a recent article from Axios, which talked to current and former staffers for Biden who described a pins and needles atmosphere behind closed doors, and also a fear of having to be in the office alone 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!,’ Axios said “current and former Biden aides who have witnessed and been on the receiving end of such outbursts” told them.
A former Biden Senate aide who wrote a book about him in 2012 also alleged a darker side.
Then-Sen. Joe Biden was an “egomaniacal autocrat … determined to manage his staff through fear,” Jeff Connaughton wrote at the time according to Axios.
The author also told the news outlet that Biden “hides his sharper edge to promote his folksy Uncle Joe image — which is why, when flashes of anger break through, it seems so out of public character.”
But one doesn’t need to be an insider to go back in time to see the despicable way then-Sen. Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden treated future Justice Clarence Thomas during his 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and before that, Judge Robert Bork, whose nomination to our nation’s highest court Biden helped derail in 1987.
It was a sign of things to come, as we saw throughout his 2020 presidential campaign when he called one voter critic of his “fat” and another “full of sh*t,” and then after he became president, where aides view being yelled at by Biden as a sign that he respects them.
This is who Joe Biden is, and while it’s nice to see such a prominent media outlet like Axios taking the lead on such a blockbuster story as Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign kicks into high gear, one has to wonder what took the media so long and why wait until this point in his lengthy political career to pull back the curtain?
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
