Just about every Democrat weighing a 2020 run has been meeting with former President Barack Obama — apparently much to former Vice President Joe Biden's chagrin.
Obama has already met with tons of 2020 contenders including Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas), former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). These meetings have been going on for months, per Politico, and even Democrats who have only dipped their toes in the 2020 pool want to arrange sit-downs with the 44th president; Politico reports that Sen. Sherrod Brown's (D-Ohio) staff hopes to schedule a meeting with Obama, even as Brown himself says he is "not convinced" he wants to run yet.
This is all apparently rubbing Obama's former vice president the wrong way, as Vanity Fair reports that Joe Biden is "upset" that Obama has been meeting so frequently with his potential Democratic primary rivals. A spokesperson for Biden refuted this characterization, calling it "unequivocally false." The report goes on to note that Obama is looking to avoid a situation like 2016, where Hillary Clinton was widely seen as the presumed Democratic presidential candidate long before the primaries even started.
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“So his position this time is, 'If you're serious and you want to talk, I'll talk to you,'" a former Obama adviser told Vanity Fair. "As things unfold, he might say, 'Let's all stay focused.' But he's not going to pick a winner."
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