Biden privately curses out staffers leading some to avoid solo meetings with him: report
- Biden reportedly yells at White House staffers behind closed doors, sometimes in profanity-laced comments.
- "God dammit, how the fuck don't you know this?!" Biden yelled at one staffer, according to Axios.
President Joe Biden reportedly privately harangues staffers in sometimes profanity-laced confrontations that has led some aides to try to avoid attending solo meetings with the president, Axios reports.
"The president's admonitions include: 'God dammit, how the fuck don't you know this?!,' 'Don't fucking bullshit me!' and 'Get the fuck out of here!'" Axios reported on Monday.
Biden's temper is well known to at least one chronicler of his still-unfolding first term. Chris Whipple, who wrote the definitive book on White House chiefs of staff, said that the current commander-in-chief "definitely" has a temper.
"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," Whipple told Axios.
In his book about the Biden White House, Whipple wrote how then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki told Biden she knew she had gained his trust when he would finally unload on her.
"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 quotes Psaki as saying.
Some aides, Axios reports, have argued that Biden should showcase more of his anger in public. Most of Axios' report is devoted to how his private fuming is in contrast to his public image as an avuncular figure who enjoys his ice cream.
One of the Biden World's longest tenured members, former US Sen. Ted Kaufman, said that Biden is not trying to embarrass staffers when he gets upset that they haven't presented him with all the information he needs. Axios reports that this process of Biden's repeated questions until an aide can't answer the question is referred to by some as "stump the chump" or "stump the dummy."
"If there is something that's not in the brief, he's going to find it," Kaufman, who was once Biden's Senate chief of staff, told the publication. "It's not to embarrass people, it's because he wants to get to the right decision. Most people who have worked for him like the fact that he challenges them and gets them to a better decision."