In public, President Biden likes to whisper to make a point. In private, he’s prone to yelling.
- Behind closed doors, Biden has such a quick-trigger temper that some aides try to avoid meeting alone with him. Some take a colleague, almost as a shield against a solo blast.
- 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!” — according to current and former Biden aides who have witnessed and been on the receiving end of such outbursts.
Why it matters: The private eruptions paint a more complicated picture of Biden as a manager and president than his carefully cultivated image as a kindly uncle who loves Aviator sunglasses and ice cream.
- Some Biden aides think the president would be better off occasionally displaying his temper in public as a way to assuage voter concerns that the 80-year-old president is disengaged and too old for the office.
Zoom in: Senior and lower-level aides alike can be in Biden’s line of fire. “No one is safe,” said one administration official.
- Biden aides still talk about how angry he got at Jeff Zients, then the administration’s “COVID czar,” in late 2021 when there was a shortage of testing kits as the Omicron variant spread. (The rage was temporary. Zients is now Biden’s chief of staff.)
- A spokesperson for Zients told Axios: “I’m not going to speak to what internal convos may or may not have happened between Jeff and the president.”
- The White House declined to comment.
“There’s no question that the Biden temper is for real. It may not be as volcanic as Bill Clinton’s, but it’s definitely there,” said Chris Whipple, author of “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House.”
- Whipple’s book quotes former White House press secretary Jen Psaki as saying: “I said to [Biden] multiple times, ‘I’ll know we have a really good, trusting relationship when you yell at me the first time.'”
- Whipple notes: “Psaki wouldn’t have to wait long.”
Zoom out: Biden’s temper comes in the form of angry interrogations rather than erratic tantrums.
