Messages from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop have surfaced showing the then-vice president criticizing his boss
Messages found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop have revealed a 2010 conversation in which then-US Vice President Joe Biden’s son accused then-President Barack Obama of plagiarizing his father’s speeches. Joe Biden responded by slamming his boss for having “no grace.”
The September 2010 exchange of emails, first reported by Fox News on Wednesday, started with Hunter Biden suggesting to his father that Obama had stolen his words in a speech the previous day at a union event in Wisconsin. After citing some of the lines from Obama’s speech, Hunter Biden said, “I’m surprised he didn’t finish with the long walk up a short flight of stairs,” alluding to phrasing that Joe Biden used while campaigning unsuccessfully for president in 2008. “Pretty amazing.”
The message was sent to Joe Biden’s personal email address, which was reportedly one of many that he used to communicate with family members. The then-VP responded to his son’s plagiarism accusation by saying of Obama, “No grace.”
Ironically, Biden’s first failed run for president ended in disgrace in 1987, when he was caught plagiarizing lines from the speeches of other politicians, including the late Robert F. Kennedy. He was also forced to admit that he had plagiarized parts of a paper he submitted as a law school student, and media outlets reported that he lied on the campaign trail about his academic record and his involvement in the 1960s civil rights movement.
Biden and Obama had a strained relationship before and during their eight years in the White House, according to a biography released last year. Author Gabriel Debenedetti’s book detailed how Obama considered Biden “condescending” and was frustrated by how he “rambled” in his speeches.
In fact, the then-president considered replacing Biden with Hillary Clinton when he ran for re-election in 2012. He reluctantly endorsed Biden for president in 2020, despite thinking his candidacy could be “unthinkably painful,” Debenedetti wrote.
Biden infamously described Obama in a 2007 magazine interview as the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” He bristled at being given little influence on the president’s decision-making, according to the book, and he “rolled his eyes behind Obama’s back,” considering him humorless and aloof.
Obama was reportedly troubled by Biden’s frequent speaking gaffes, which he believed gave ammunition to political enemies, and he was angered when Biden prematurely revealed that he and the president would support gay marriage. Biden was “personally stung” when Obama supported Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for president in 2016.
