Behind closed doors, the US president is notorious for verbally abusing his underlings, Axios has reported
Joe Biden gestures before boarding Air Force One at Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, October 31, 2022 © AP / Manuel Balce Ceneta
President Joe Biden presents a calm and kindly image image in public, but lashes out in anger at his subordinates in private, Axios reported on Monday. From senior aides to junior staffers, “no one is safe,” one White House official claimed.
So notorious is Biden’s temper, Axios claimed, that some aides actively try to avoid meeting with him. Among the choice phrases hurled at them by Biden are “God dammit, how the f**k don’t you know this?!,” “Don’t f**king bulls**t me!” and “Get the f**k out of here!” current and former officials said.
Some of Axios’ sources were defensive of the president, arguing that he fiercely grills his aides in order to ensure that they are providing him with accurate information, a process they reportedly refer to as “stump the chump” or “stump the dummy.”
Others said that he verbally accosts only those in his circle that he respects. “I’ll know we have a really good, trusting relationship when you yell at me the first time,” former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki once said to Biden, according to author and Biden biographer Chris Whipple.
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However, Jeff Connaughton, who worked as an aide to Biden during his time in the US Senate, described Biden as an “egomaniacal autocrat… determined to manage his staff through fear.”
Axios quoted an excerpt from a 2012 book by Connaughton, in which he recalled working on Biden’s short-lived 2008 presidential campaign. When a 23-year-old staffer got into Biden’s car to remind the then-senator to “do some fundraising calls,” Biden apparently snapped back “get the f**k out of the car.”
Biden’s 2020 campaign made repeated use of the word “decency,” and Biden portrayed himself in public as a soft-spoken, moderate figure. Referred to by supporters and opponents alike as “Uncle Joe” or “Grandpa Joe,” Biden nevertheless has allowed his temper to boil over on numerous occasions on the campaign trail and in office.
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Biden notably snapped at a voter in Iowa in late 2019, calling the man “fat,” and “a damn liar,” before calling a female voter a “lying dog-faced pony soldier” in early 2020. Quizzed on inflation by Fox News reporter Steve Doocy early last year, Biden called Doocy a “stupid son of a bitch” under his breath.
Critics of Biden have long claimed that the president is cognitively impaired, and possibly suffering from dementia. Biden’s outbursts – like his lashing out at a CBS News reporter who asked him whether he had taken a cognitive test in 2020 – are “so typical of people in the early stages of decline,” former Housing and Urban Development Secretary and neurosurgeon Ben Carson remarked last year.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was more blunt in his assessment of Biden’s mental health, describing the US leader as an “old, rotten, demented stump,” and an “ill and miserable old man” in a series of recent Tweets.
