Former President Barack Obama has made some power moves that rival President Joe Biden's influence, Stephen Flurry of the Philadelphia Trumpet reported. Rumors suggest that Obama is intentionally more powerful than Biden.
Flurry, who is the news outlet's executive editor, contends that Obama may still be running the show. In a piece titled "The Biden-Obama Power Struggle Isn’t Real," Flurry shares how Obama seems to be making presidential moves despite his status which hints at some sort of arrangement.
The author contends that there is no "power struggle" as the media like to portray because Obama clearly has the upper hand over his former vice president. Obama is also out there making presidential moves that speak to a higher status than just a former commander-in-chief.
Obama recently met the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for something the former president called a "courtesy visit." However, this is not only unprecedented but also a move Democrats explicitly complained about when it involved a Republican administration.
"Some news analysts believe that Biden’s insecurity indicates there is some sort of rivalry or power struggle between the former president and vice president. But this belief gives Biden too much credit," Flurry wrote.
"He may not always like being dominated by Obama, but he is far too senile to put up any sort of fight," the author added. Flurry believes that with so many "Obama administration alumni," the former president would easily have sway and influence in the Biden White House.
Of course, Obama has been out of office since he finished his second term in 2016. Still, it's clear that he has the same respect and adulation as he always did, even with the current president in the room.
During a White House event in 2022 commemorating the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the crowd was enamored with Obama. He was shaking hands and chatting with several of the attendees while Biden hung around in his orbit, looking lost and forlorn.
Joe Biden was filmed yesterday looking lost after fans ignored him to flock around Barack Obama at the White House.
Mike narrates the video...@iromg pic.twitter.com/kwd196Awt5
— TalkTV (@TalkTV) April 6, 2022
If Obama still has this kind of influence while holding no official position in the administration, it would mean he has Biden right where he wants him. In a Nov. 2020 interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Obama laid out this exact scenario, Deadline reported.
"I used to say if I can make an arrangement where I had a stand-in or front-man or front-woman, and they had an earpiece in and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff, and I could sort of deliver the lines while someone was doing all the talking and ceremony, I’d be fine with that because I found the work fascinating," Obama said. The prospect excited the term-limited president.
"Even on my worst days, I found puzzling out these big complicated, difficult issues, especially if you were working with some great people, to be especially professionally, really satisfying," Obama said. While there's no direct evidence this is what's happening, Flurry makes no bones about his opinion on the matter.
"People have to realize that America’s nation-destroying problems are not the mistakes of a senile president. They are the successes of a malevolent shadow president," Flurry concluded.
Whether there's a formal arrangement between Obama and Biden, the current president is certainly following his lead in how he governs. The work of destroying America began under Obama, but Biden is doing a great job continuing that mission.
