Good morning. Welcome. The gaithersburg book festival. My name is marc korman. Im a state delegate representing Montgomery County in the maryland general assembly. And i apologize for forgetting my sports coat at home in the biggest fashion pas since barack obama wore a tan suit that one afternoon and blew up twitter gaithersburg is a city that values and supports the arts humanities. Were pleased to bring you this fabulous festival, thanks in part to the generous support of our sponsors, including our title, the carnegie at washington, and all of our great volunteers. You see them. Please join us in expressing our deep thanks and appreciation. A few announcements. Please silence all of your devices for the latest updates. Make sure following gaithersburg book festival on facebook and twitter. If you post about the festival, please use the gbv. Your feedback is really to us. Surveys are available on website, which you can access at gaithersburg book festival dot org or using the key qr code. You see on the signs around us. By submitting a survey youll be entered into a drawing for a 100 visa gift card. I also should acknowledge we have the mayor of gaithersburg with us, the founder of this festival, as well as our state, and the mayor as well as our state comptroller. Brooke lerman, as well us as well. So thank you both for sitting in our author gabe cabe devin benedetti will be signing immediately after this presentation. Copies of his book are on sale and the politics pro store and the activity center. And a quick plug for buying books. This is a free event, but it does our festival. If you buy lots of books, the more books we sell at our events, the more will want to send their authors here to speak with us. Purchasing. Purchasing from our partner, politics and prose helps support one of the worlds great independent bookstores. It benefits our local economy and supports local. And by the way, they make great gifts. I already a bagful right over th program and youre in ajoy position to do so, please do buy books here today and at the store in the activity. Our author this morning is de benedetti. Author of the Long Alliance the imperfect union of joe biden and barack obama. Gabe has been the National Correspondent for new York Magazine since 2018, were among the articles written about his two subjects in this book. Our how joe biden became the president elect. What obama is saying in private about the Democratic Party. What obama is doing behind the scenes to help democrats win, and most recently favorite old beats crazy. Prior to that, he worked at politico reuters and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, the economist and vanity fair. Gabe, welcome to gaithersburg. Its great to be here. Thank you so much. Thats all true. Sorry for my slight delay. I was stuck in the traffic apocalypse out to 70, but its great to be here. We are known for our traffic here, so im you got to have the real local experience right gabe in your books preface you write and im quoting these pages aimed to tell the true winding story of a nearly two decade relationship that has a claim to being the most consequential any in 21st century politics, having shaped both actively and not just for president ial campaigns and to different political parties, but also worse the recovering from a devastating near depression movements, social equality, the right for the of american democracy. And now, depending how youre counting three presidencies, it covers a bond that has been at times tense affection, nonexistent and iron clad. Would you say thats the Books Mission statement . Yeah, i think you basically covered it there was about 400 pages of that. You. But yeah i think the way that i ill you about why i decided to write this i set out to ive been covering both of them for quite some time. President obama and biden. But i set out to write this in, the aftermath of the 2020 election because i was seeing a strain of coverage that really struck me as as basically and what this was was there there were story after story and broadcast broadcast about, you know, implicitly what we were in for now was a restoration of the obama years. And obviously there was something to that and that was certainly the subtext of a lot of the way biden campaigned in 2020. But i knew that of them actually saw it that way personally and that their relationship was pretty far from this, you know, seamless bromance as they like to talk about it more than this, a little bit more than that. Joe biden loves this book. Biden wrote that. He displays it in his office. He does display it or or one of those he has a number, these picture books or mystery novels about their fictional time together that he loves talking about. But anyways, obviously we all know that the Public Images that they are these again their relationship really been seamless for a very long time that theyre very close friends. They refer to each other as brothers. But the truth is that they look at politics very differently now. They were fully formed politicians both before they interacted for the first time. And there have been some very significant ups and downs certainly before the time they became president , Vice President , but really since as well and you know that includes during their eight years in the white house. So this this idea that were simply going to return to what Many Democrats thought of as the good old days pretrump was not really at all true. And so i set out to report on this. I talked to lots and lots and lots and lots people and thought back to those good old days or thats what thats how a lot of people framed it anyway. And away with a much more complicated story which is that its certainly the closest relationship that weve had in modern times between a president and a Vice President and certainly a president and a former president. Now. But that that is far from whole story. And thats what makes it interesting. Yeah. So reading your book, first of all, obviously, as you said, its more complicated than the stereotype and going to sort of bucket it into a different is recognizing that theres bleeding between those phases. But reading your book i sort of looked at it as kind of the early days when they first met and served together in the senate through the campaign in 2008. And of course, the presidency, the presidency or that the intermediate period between that the the presidencies of barack obama and joe and of course, the current period were in is the biden presidency. And as i said, i think thats far too simplified, but i think its a good way to sort of walk through some of the issues for that, for the audience. So, you know, starting with those sort of early days, when did they first meet so. First interacted . Well, its a little bit of a complicated question. You do get different answers from different people. The real answer is that they first met for the first time after obama was elected to the senate in 2004. But that was a time when joe biden had basically thought about running for president , was decided ultimately not to. In 2004, believe that he was to be john kerrys secretary of state and had seen obama perform at the 2004 convention, which is, of course, the star turn that turned him into this political superstar and had seen that all these people were essentially asking, what is that guy going to run for president one day . And he had cautionary words for the obama team. This is biden, who had already been in the for a long time at this point said to the obama team, you know, make sure that he keeps his head, that he does the work. And he thought that was imparting some sort of very, you know, insider knowledge advice. But, of course, this was conventional wisdom. Thats what they were going to do anyway. So anyway to make a, you know, long ish complex, ish story short, they really met in the early days of obamas time in the senate when he had first got there, there was a lot of talk. This is early 2005, i should say, not for him. There a lot of talk about the notion that he was going be, you know, the next big thing. And biden bristled at that. But but obama wanted to join bidens Foreign Relations and he made that clear. And biden eventually invited him over to his office to have a conversation. So they had this first conversation. And biden, you know, has been watching obama from afar hes already thinking about how hes likely to run for president. 28 but the important thing to think about with biden at this point is that he really saw as the democratic counterweight to republican Foreign Policy. This is on iraq, afghanistan at the time he thinks of himself as really, you know, being an important figure in, the national conversation. Hes a counterweight, the bush white house. So he invites obama over and he essentially makes clear to obama, well, sure, well have you on the committee. Youll be the most junior member. Whatever. No problem. Good. Have some star power around. But basically a quick little conversation and they determine, well, maybe we should get to know each other a little bit better because obama has to go back to chicago. That this is very early on. Biden has to go back to wilmington and essentially say, well, maybe have a decent relationship here, but neither of them is thinking of the other all that much at all. Bidens got this other stuff going on. Obamas trying to meet every other senior senator there is, really figure out his place in washington. Hes quickly determining that he doesnt like the senate, that hes going to have to do it anyway. And so biden essentially says to obama, well, this is fine, but lets get to know each other little bit more. Lets plan for a dinner sometime soon. Well just get dinner at some cheap italian place here on capitol hill. Nothing fancy at all. Now, this was a total misunderstanding. They were they were completely misreading each other at that moment when obama biden say were just going to get something cheap, you know, nothing. Well itll be chill obama this as who is this guy think he is you for the first time. Obama has money because hes just signed a book deal after the 2004 race. So he thinks, oh, i can afford it. Actually. And he also thinks of as this kind of Old School Guy whos around the senate for the longest, longest time possible, who is not really an exemplar of how things get done in washington. You know, obama had gotten to d. C. Promising to move past the old way of doing things. And he sees biden as one of these these old guys. So obama says to him, well, we can go for something fancy. You know. I can afford a joe biden. Of course, back. And he doesnt say any of this out loud. He says hes thinking to himself, well, i cant afford it. You know, and who does this guy think he is you know, hes just a little senator. Im just trying to be casual here. So anyway, they never have that dinner. They walk away from this meeting not scheduling any follow ups and they end up spending a lot of time together on the relations committee. But, you know im sure people here know how these committees work. They really arent really interacting in any serious, substantive way. Biden is running this show. Obama is the most junior. They certainly see a lot of each other, but its much more of obama watching biden talk and talk and talk as he sees it during their time together in the senate do you know if they worked on an actual legislation . I know they were on the committee together and nothing super substantive. Nothing worth noting in any room. I mean, there was a lot going on at that time. I dont want to understate it, but what obama very quickly trying to figure out what his place in the senate was going to be. He was interested, the Foreign Relations committee, but he didnt want his dad, he didnt want to be known for a in particular. He had, you know, become quite famous when running for senate for giving this speech about the war. You saying that he opposed dumb wars. Thats an oversimplification. But that is what he said. And that was the headline. And biden was wary of talking about it in those simplistic terms where senator obama actually may be closer. Senator lugar, the republican lead on the committee with senator biden, he read the book closely. Yes. And that was quite telling to a lot of people. So lugar was the also quite seasoned republican lead on that committee, someone who talked a lot about bipartisanship. And he had heard while obama was for the senate that obama was very interested in some of the work that hed been doing, nuclear nonproliferation, exactly. A sexy topic in an illinois senate, but obama talked about it and lugar said maybe theres something to this guy. They actually struck up a very good relationship, one on some foreign trips together that obama still thinks about, actually. And it was quite telling that he actually had this relationship with this older republican but didnt really any relationship to speak of with biden who was, of course, in his own party at the time it led to some uncomfortable dynamics biden was aware of it but again, biden had his own things going on. You know, he thinking, im going to run for president. I dont have to worry about this guy. He can run for president in 20 years or whatever. And, you know, so with that later. So i should press fast forward there what im going to have to do a lot, unfortunately, theyve got these guys have been in each others orbit for so long now that back campaign for the presidency i think maybe biden thought he was on a collision course with senator obama. Im not sure if senator obama saw it that way. But do you recall what what senator obama or senator biden, excuse me was quoted as saying on the first day of his campaign . Yeah, ill let you read it if you have it there, because i dont want to paraphrase it incorrectly, but it was not good. Yeah. So this is a quote. This is not me saying this. I mean, you got the first mainstream africanamerican articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy. I mean, thats a storybook. So what effect would that have on the obama relationship, such as it was . Sure. So you set this up well, which was so biden says this on the day that he launches his campaign. Now, i dont know if we can all remember what the early days of that campaign looked like, but it was pretty clear to most people that it was going to be obama, Hillary Clinton and john edwards was also in this mix at that point. Joe biden was running. He was taking somewhat seriously, but somewhat is operative word there. I mean, he really was polling that well. He thought he was going to be a serious candidate basically as soon as he said this and the new York Observer published it, that was the end of his campaign. He kept running a while, but his donors pulled out, said, actually, i dont know about this. You know, obama saw this and sort of couldnt believe that he had said it, but he made it quite he said, you know, i dont think this guys a racist. I think he misspoke. I think, you know, this is obviously not great. But obama want to get into this topic already. Hegointo have to address his race in a very serious way later on in primary. And he didnt want it to be not on his own terms. So he and biden talked. Biden apologized. But politically speaking, from that point, it was fairly clear that biden was going to be more or less an afterthought as a candidate himself, was clear to everyone but him so he continued to run for quite some time. And it was not a very well positioned campaign in terms of trying to capture. He basically would recite his resume the trail in iowa for months at a time and his his brother would stand in the back of the room and sort of wave his when joe had gone on for too long and would lose the attention of the of the crowds. Of course, at the same time, you have obama on this, you know, rocket ship path to the presidency at that point. So biden wasnt thrilled, but he was getting impressed with obama. He was like, you know, i dont want to i dont want to pretend that he was impressed with obama. He just was also frustrated that no one was paying attention to him. Obama, on the other hand, really had no reason to think about biden at all. At that point, he was so focused on Hillary Clinton later on in the. But. Well, i assume youre going to ask about that. Well, yeah. How exactly did it go from being a guy with this misstatement . Obama who obama viewed as maybe a little bit past his prime to becoming the Vice President ial nominee . Sure. So as as many recall, that primary race turned into this brutal, long, drawn out battle between obama and Hillary Clinton. And once it becomes clear only quite late in the process that obamas actually going to be able to win this thing according to his teams delegate math, various people in his orbit, including david axelrod, valerie jarrett, sit him down and say, well, who do you think you want to have as Vice President . And obama consistently surprised them by saying, i think we should take joe biden fairly seriously. Now, it wasnt that surprising terms of the conventional wisdom because he was an you know, he fit all of the boxes that we in washington like to think about. You know, hes a complementary kind of figure. But they all said and ill get into that in a second, but they all. Well, but dont you not like this guy, arent you . Not by him and obama consistently said that he had actually been quite impressed with the way that biden had handled themselves during the primary debates. Biden didnt get a lot of time talk during the primary debates because he was not the but he was it was clear to obama and to some of the other candidates that he was substantively there. He really understood the policy. He really cared about it, particularly on economics and Foreign Policy. So obama said, well, this guy clearly knows what hes doing and so lets include him in the conversation. It was a long out conversation, but it turn out that, you know when they looked at the polling, when they looked at the focus groups that they were doing to try and figure out who they wanted to be the Vice President , there were a few criteria he fit that were very important to them. They, an older white male because they wanted to calm down a lot. The fears that voters were fearing unfairly or fairly. Right. Thats what they thats how they thats how they it to obama they wanted literally with gray hair literally to show, you know, washington experience and they wanted someone with Foreign Policy experienc