Secret audio recordings between former US president Joe Biden and his ghostwriter have been made public after a lengthy legal fight. The conservative Oversight Project released the tapes on July 27, having sued the Justice Department to obtain them. Biden had initially fought to keep the recordings private but later dropped his legal challenge.
Biden discusses classified notes
In the tapes, Biden can be heard sharing notes from his time as vice president under Barack Obama with biographer Mark Lewis Zwonitzer. “They didn't even know I had this,” Biden says, referring to handwritten notes he kept from his administration. Parts of the conversation remain redacted because they involve classified foreign policy matters.
Biden also discusses the deployment of US troops to Afghanistan, recalling a 40-page memo he wrote to Obama in 2009 arguing against sending additional forces. “I wrote the President a handwritten 40-page memorandum arguing against deploying additional troops to Iraq – I mean, to Afghanistan on the grounds that it wouldn't matter, that the day we left would be like the day before we arrived,” he says. At one point, Biden abruptly stops himself, saying: “And then — and then the next thing I have here is — this is classified.”
Tensions with Obama over financial crisis
The recordings capture a candid account of Biden's working relationship with Obama. Biden claims Obama would “really get p***ed” at him during arguments over how aggressively to respond to the 2008 financial crisis. “I was a really lonely voice on housing, I was a lonely voice on the middle class. I mean, I thought we should be much more aggressive than putting these guys in jail and the bankers,” Biden says. “I mean, he used to really get p***ed at me.”
2016 election decision
Biden also revisits his decision not to challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016. He says Obama told him the choice was his but warned it would be “really be an uphill battle.” Biden adds: “The fact is that he didn't think it was doable at that time, that I could, that I could actually go out and get the nomination. That was my read at the time.”
