Biden's Big Mouth Irks Obama: Book

By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted May 21, 2009 2:56 PM CDT
Biden's Big Mouth Irks Obama: Book
President Barack Obama and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.   (AP Photo)

The rocky relationship between President Obama and Joe Biden comes under scrutiny in a new book by a Newsweek reporter, Fox News reports. In Renegade: the Making of a President, Richard Wolffe writes that Obama is “distracted by his vice president's indiscipline” and has had to personally rebuke his gaffe-prone No. 2. “He can't keep his mouth shut,” an aide told Wolffe.

The book details a meeting during which Biden joshed Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett after she removed herself from the running for the president’s Illinois senate seat. “You should be in the Senate,” Biden told Jarrett after an astute comment. Wolffe writes that Obama chided Biden, saying, “It’s not funny.” Jarrett denies any ill feeling. “Any suggestion that I was insulted by the vice president's gracious comments regarding my potential for public service is ridiculous,” she told Fox. (More book stories.)

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