The hosts of Pod Save America joked about President Joe Biden snubbing former President Barack Obama by not awarding him the Medal of Freedom, The Washington Examiner report. Co-hosts Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor were previously staffers for Obama.
On Saturday, the White House announced the names of the 19 people who would receive the highest civilian honor. Obama was not on that list, and the podcast hosts poked fun at the situation.
"Obama gave one to Biden, and Biden did not return the favor," Favreau said. Lovett replied, "I guess they’re not really on speaking terms, I suppose, after all that’s happened!"
Despite governing together for eight years, it's increasingly apparent that Obama and Biden have a strained relationship today. This seems all the more evident given that Biden did not award the Medal of Freedom to Obama despite receiving one himself.
"To know Joe Biden is to know love without pretense, service without self-regard, and to live life fully," Obama said about Biden in 2017 when presenting the award. Biden did not reciprocate that honor when given the chance at the end of his presidency.
This is a drastic change from the way it was when Obama was president and Biden his vice president. The media painted a picture of their "bromance," and that image was solidified in 2019 when Biden shared a photo of friendship bracelets with their names for National Best Friend's Day.
However, behind the scenes, things were already tense even then. Obama was reportedly behind Biden's decision not to run for president in 2016 when Democrats chose former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as their candidate, who went on to lose to President Donald Trump.
Despite endorsing Biden, Obama still did not have faith in Biden to win the presidential election in 2020. "Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f–k things up," Obama allegedly warned an unidentified Democrat in August that year, the New York Post reported.
If ever there was a shred of goodwill left, it's all gone after Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. Publicly, Obama praised Biden's decision, but behind the scenes, it appeared that Biden had no decision at all.
According to The Hill, Biden's campaign believed Obama was pushing him out. "One thing that we do have to underline here — just so viewers can follow what’s going on behind the scenes — is the Biden campaign, and many Democratic officials do believe that Barack Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this," MSNBC's Joe Scarborough shared on July 11.
This came a day after actor and political activist George Clooney published a New York Times guest essay, "I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee." It appeared to have been a coordinated effort to push Biden out, and some believe Obama was the mastermind.
The Associated Press reported that Biden indeed dropped out and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in a letter posted to X, formerly Twitter, less than two weeks later. Harris would go on to lose to Trump just as Clinton did in eight years before.
Obama chose losing candidates over his former vice president, and Biden likely saw that as a grave offense against him. Biden likely failed to reciprocate in awarding Obama the Medal of Freedom as a way to humiliate him.
