White House spokesman says president considers appointing Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008 was ‘smartest decision he’s ever made in politics’

Barack Obama has signalled that his warm words for Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the White House in 2016 do not amount to a full endorsement, leaving the door open to a possible pivot in support of his vice-president, Joe Biden, who is considering a late entry to the Democratic race.

Obama and Biden had lunch together on Monday amid intensifying speculation over whether the vice-president will challenge Clinton and her nearest rival, Bernie Sanders, for the Democratic nomination.

At the same time, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that Obama’s decision to appoint Biden as his running mate in 2008 was “the smartest decision he’s ever made in politics”.

“That should give you some sense of the president’s view of Vice-President Biden’s aptitude for the top job,” Josh Earnest said.

It was not the first time Obama had expressed that sentiment about his vice-president, but the carefully chosen words from his spokesman hinted that Obama’s regard for and loyalty to Biden is unparalleled. The tenor of the remarks will lead to questions over whether Obama would spurn Clinton, the former secretary of state he defeated in the 2009 primary, for Biden.

Obama said Clinton “would be an excellent president” earlier this year but stopped short of fully endorsing her candidacy. Earnest said on Monday that he could not rule out Obama endorsing one of the candidates in the Democratic primary, and said everyone was “pretty interested to find out” whether Biden would enter the race, a decision he has indicated he will make before the end of the summer.

“The vice-president is somebody who has already run for president twice, he has already been on a national ticket through two election cycles now, both through 2008 and the re-election of 2012,” Earnest added. “So I think you could make the case that there is probably nobody in American politics today who has a better understanding of exactly what is required to mount a successful, national, presidential campaign.”

A hasty trip by Biden to visit Senator Elizabeth Warren this past weekend sparked new hope for Warren supporters that she would be a national candidate in 2016. Could Biden be planning a run for the presidency, and sounding out the Massachusetts senator for his veep slot?

Martin O'Malley: Biden run would mean 'one more lifelong Democrat' in race Read more

The National Review went so far as to call a Biden-Warren ticket the Democrats’ “Plan B”, should the Hillary Clinton campaign flounder.

The Biden-Warren meeting was given over to economic policy and did not particularly focus on the 2016 campaign, according to CNN, which broke the news. The White House declined to confirm or deny the meeting took place.

Biden, however, rearranged his schedule to make the meeting happen, traveling on Saturday from his home in Delaware back to Washington at the “last-minute”, according to an unnamed White House source quoted in the Washington Post.

As perhaps the country’s most credible critic of criminal activity in the financial sector, Warren is a star on the left who could potentially confer an influential endorsement on any Democractic presidential candidate. Clinton invited Warren to meet her one-on-one at her Washington home last December, at a time when she was preparing for her presidential run.

Biden’s seeking out Warren has lent credence to many reports that he is seriously considering challenging Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Factors influencing his decision are said to include the potential malfunction of the Clinton campaign in recent weeks over a possible mishandling of classified material, and the wishes of his late son, Beau.

Before he died of cancer in May at age 46, Beau Biden reportedly tried to make his father promise that he would run for president.

Whatever her fans’ wishes, Warren has never made a move to run for president and has given no indication that the vice-presidency – a role that would not allow her to grill witnesses at banking hearings or write banking reform legislation – would be any more desirable.

Neither would Biden seem a more natural match for Warren – or a smarter play – than Clinton. In his 36 years as a senator, Biden did not make a mark as a scourge of criminality in the financial sector. He also voted for legislation backed by credit-card companies headquartered in his home state of Delaware.

When Biden ran for the Democratic nomination against Clinton in 2008, he came in fifth in the Iowa caucuses and immediately dropped out. She went on to a hard-fought loss to Barack Obama.