Members of President Barack Obama’s team worked to push back against a juicy story that surfaced Thursday, insisting that Vice President Joe Biden was never seriously at risk of being shoved off the 2012 ticket and replaced by Hillary Clinton.
The detail, which will appear in the forthcoming book “Double Down” by Mark Halperin and John Heileman, was reported by the New York Times. Former White House chief of staff William Daley acknowledged that he signed off on research into the switch in late 2011, but said it was simply a case of Obama’s re-election team performing its “due dilligence.”
“I was vocal about looking into a whole bunch of things, and this was one of them,” Daley told the Times. “You have to remember, at that point the president was in awful shape, so we were like, ‘Holy Christ, what do we do?’”
Daley went even further on Friday, telling “CBS This Morning” that they never considered replacing Biden with the former secretary of state.
“Not for a moment,” Daley said, noting that there was research done on a number of different individuals and issues.
Former Obama adviser David Plouffe said on Twitter Thursday that the idea was never “entertained” by Obama or “most of us.”
Never any – any – consideration of VP/HRC switch. Not even entertained by the only person who mattered. Or most of us. Back to Halloween.
— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) October 31, 2013
