Fearing Biden loss, Obama gets on the phone to strategise

Level of engagement due to huge concern over a Trump win, says ex-president’s aide

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WASHINGTON - As the US election approaches, President Joe Biden is making regular calls to former president Barack Obama to discuss the race or to talk about family.

But Mr Obama is making calls of his own to Mr Jeffrey Zients, the White House chief of staff, and to top Biden campaign aides to strategise and relay advice.

This level of engagement illustrates Mr Obama's support for Mr Biden, but also what one of his senior aides characterised as Mr Obama's grave concern that Mr Biden could lose to former president Donald Trump.

The aide said that Mr Obama has "always" been worried about a Biden loss. And so, he is prepared to "eke it out" alongside his former vice-president in an election that could come down to slim margins in a handful of states.

Perhaps for the first time, the two are on the same page about Mr Biden's future.

In a sign of things to come, they were set to appear together, with former president Bill Clinton, at a major fundraiser for the Biden campaign at Radio City Music Hall in New York on March 28.

It was not always this way.

In 2015, as Mr Biden was mourning the loss of his eldest son, Beau, and contemplating running for the presidency, it was Mr Obama who gently suggested that it was not his time. In a memoir, Promise Me, Dad, Mr Biden wrote that Mr Obama told him that if he "could appoint anyone to be president for the next eight years", it would have been Mr Biden.

The then Vice-President wrote that "the mere possibility of a presidential campaign, which Beau wanted, gave us purpose and hope - a way to defy the fates".