A composite image of Joe Biden on ‘Meet the Press’ and Dick Cheney on ‘State of the Union.’ | AP photo composite by POLITICO W.H. counters Cheney with Biden

Vice President Joe Biden's appearances on two Sunday morning talk shows this week are part of a White House strategy to both pre-empt and potentially respond to former Vice President Dick Cheney's interview on ABC's "This Week," where administration officials expect he'll continue to advance his sharp critique of President Obama's record on national security.

Cheney has been one of the strongest critics of Obama's handling of national security and foreign policy issues, and his interview comes amid an intense debate over the administration's handling of the accused Christmas Day bomber and the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.


After Cheney's interview was announced Thursday, the White House lined up Biden for NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS's "Face the Nation."

Sunday's VP vs. VP lineup is a first, and the closest Biden and Cheney have come to an actual debate.

The pre-emptive part of the programming starts with "Meet the Press." Biden is scheduled to tape his "Meet" interview with David Gregory on Saturday evening from Vancouver. A White House official said that in the segment Biden will make the case for how aggressive the Obama administration has been in taking on al Qaeda.

An excerpt of Biden's interview will be released later Saturday evening under an embargo that will lift just as Cheney’s live sit-down with Jonathan Karl begins Sunday at 9 a.m. If Biden doesn't watch the interview from his perch in Vancouver, the official said, the vice president will most certainly be informed on what his predecessor says by someone who does.

Then at 10:30, Biden will be interviewed live by Bob Scheiffer on "Face the Nation," giving the vice president a chance to directly reply to whatever charges his predecessor had leveled earlier in the morning.

"If the former vice president wants to discuss the record on fighting al Qaeda and keeping America safe, then we thought it made sense for the current vice president to make the case for what the Obama administration has succeeded in doing," a White House official said.

Already the White House has started to leak more information to the press about its efforts to combat terrorism, something the White House believes Obama has not received enough credit for.

An Associated Press story Friday included some of the most detailed accounts yet of the administration's counterterrorism efforts, attributed to senior intelligence and law enforcement officials. The story highlighted the administration's belief that the war on terrorism campaign "can be waged even more aggressively than its predecessor's."

While Cheney has appeared on the Sunday talk shows several times since leaving office to blast the Obama administration, until now the White House has left push-back to lower-profile administration officials in the following hours or to Monday from the press secretary's podium.

The vice presidents have exchanged barbs in the media for over a year now.

Asked last December about Biden's comment that Cheney was "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history," the Republican fired back that it seemed Obama "does not expect Biden to have as consequential a role as I have had during my time."

Biden said Cheney was "dead wrong" last spring when he said the Obama administration's policies made the country less safe. And when Cheney said Obama was "dithering" on his Afghanistan strategy, Biden said his predecessor's opinions were "irrelevant."