Joe Biden just had an intriguing meeting with a Wall Street mega-donor
During Biden's trip to New York City last week, the Democrat starred in a campaign-like rally to raise the minimum wage and opened up about his personal life during an interview with late-night host Stephen Colbert.
During his emotional Colbert interview, Biden said he was still distraught over the death of his son, Beau, and did not seem up to the challenges of the presidential campaign trail.
"I'd be lying if I said that I knew I was there," he said.
At the same time, however, Biden was apparently planning to do what political candidates often do in New York: meet with potential fundraisers from the finance industry.
According to a Bloomberg Politics report published Monday, Biden had a lengthy, one-on-one meeting with Robert Wolf shortly after the Colbert interview. Wolf, a former top executive at UBS, is a veteran Wall Street deal maker.
Wolf is also deeply involved in politics and government.
Indeed, Bloomberg's John Heilemann described Wolf as "a prodigious buck-raker on behalf of Barack Obama in two successive campaigns, a four-time appointee to economic panels in the Obama administration, and perhaps the only person in the American business community - and certainly the sole Wall Street potentate - with whom Obama during his time in office has developed a deep and genuine friendship."
Wolf confirmed the Biden meeting to Heilemann, but he reportedly pointed out that he supports former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner who would likely be Biden's biggest obstacle to the party's nomination.
He also said the meeting focused on the more mundane policy topics like the US Export-Import Bank and rebuilding US infrastructure.
Heilemann apparently wasn't convinced that was all the meeting entailed, however. The writer suggested that Biden probably had an ulterior motive for his 90-minute powwow with Wolf.
"Wolf is by nature a straight shooter. But both the timing of the meeting and its furtiveness strongly suggest there is more here than meets the eye," Heilemann wrote. "Wolf admitted that until last Friday, they had never had a sustained or personal conversation."