Joe Biden and Barack Obama are known to have never really been on good terms.

Follwoing President Joe Biden’s mysterious announcement ending his campaign for re-election, political advisor Peter Schweizer sees a stirking comparison to the politics of 2008. On a recent podcast, Schweizer called it the “Obama coup,” arguing that Barack Obama has long been making plans to replace Biden.

It’s been an open secret in Washington that former President Obama was unofficially pulling the strings of his former vice president’s administration.

Yet, there was known to be a lot of bad blood between the two men, even predating Obama’s decision to endorse Hillary Clinton instead of Biden for president in 2016. Now, with the Democrats trying to rally their base around the swapped-in candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris, it’s interesting to compare the history that Barack Obama has with both.

„The thing you have to understand is that Barack Obama has never really liked Joe Biden. Biden was imposed on him when Obama ran in 2008. He was told by the leadership in the Democratic Party that you need somebody who’s seasoned, who’s experienced,”

– Peter Schweizer said, recalling that at that time, Obama had only been in the Senate for a few years.

In stark contrast to all this, Obama and Harris have been close for years. They have been friends long before Barack Obama was in the US Senate. When Ms Harris she became district attorney in San Francisco, Barack Obama actually helped her retire some of her debts. They were close enough that Obama could even get away with joking in a speech for her that “she also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.” When Kamala Harris ran for the Senate herself, media profilers started referring to her as “the female Obama.”

“I think what happened in this particular case is that it was Barack Obama who led the charge among the former senior officials in saying behind the scenes that Joe Biden needed to step down,”

– the political advisor said.