Obama made Biden his Senate intermediary to spare McConnell racist backlash from the GOP base

Former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden on Election Day 2008.
(Image credit: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images)

Former President Barack Obama was acutely aware of the racist backlash to his time in the White House — and it guided the decisions he made while there.

The early days of Obama's presidency coincided with the rise of the Tea Party within the GOP, leading Republicans to take over the Senate in 2014. And the opposition to Obama himself embedded in that far-right movement warped how the former president worked with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Obama writes in his forthcoming memoir obtained by CNN.

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Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.