Former US presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama (file image) (Image: Getty)
Audio recordings between a former US president and his ghostwriter have been released following a lengthy court battle.
The recording between Joe Biden and his ghostwriter were released on Monday, July 27 by the conservative Oversight Project after it sued the Justice Department. Mr Biden had fought to keep the recordings private before abandoning his legal challenge.
The content of the recordings appears broadly consistent with findings that Mr Biden retained classified material after leaving the vice presidency and offer a snippet into his experience working under former US president Barack Obama.
In the tapes, Mr Biden casually discusses notes from his years as vice president under Mr Obama, while showing them to biographer Mark Lewis Zwonitzer.
“They didn’t even know I had this,” Biden says while reportedly referring to handwritten notes he kept from his time in office. Portions of the discussion remain redacted because they relate to allegedly classified foreign policy matters.
In another exchange, Biden could be heard discussing the deployment of US troops to Afghanistan.
“So this was – I, early on, in ‘09 – I just found all of the classified stuff downstairs.
“I wrote the President a handwritten 40-page memorandum arguing against deploying additional troops to Iraq – I mean, to Afghanistan on the grounds that it wouldn’t matter, that the day we left would be like the day before we arrived,” he added.
Mr Biden abruptly stops himself at another point.
“And then — and then the next thing I have here is — this is classified,” he said.
The recordings also offer a candid account of Mr Biden’s on his experience with Mr Obama, the 2008 financial crisis and his own political future.
Joe Biden and Barack Obama in 2008 (Image: Getty)
Mr Biden says Mr Obama would “really get p***ed” at him during arguments over how aggressively the administration should respond to the financial crisis.
“I was a really lonely voice on housing, I was a lonely voice on the middle class. I mean, I thought we should be much more aggressive than putting these guys in jail and the bankers,” he says.
“I mean, he used to really get p***ed at me.”
The recordings also revisit Mr Biden’s decision not to challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016.
He recalled Mr Obama telling him the decision was ultimately his own, but warning it would be “really be an uphill battle.”
“The fact is that he didn’t think it was doable at that time, that I could, that I could actually go out and get the nomination,” Biden said.
“That was my read at the time.”