‘There’s A Rivalry There’: Reporters Say What ‘Bothered’ Obama About Biden

New York Times (NYT) reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns alleged Monday on CNN’s “New Day” that President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama have an ongoing “rivalry.”

CNN’s John Berman asked the pair about the relationship between Biden and Obama while discussing details from their upcoming book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, And The Battle For America’s Future.”

Burns recounted how Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi allegedly told a friend in 2021 that Obama was “jealous” of coverage of Biden’s accomplishments in his first year. (RELATED: Biden Left Looking For Someone To Talk To As Obama Is Surrounded By Democratic Groupies)

JUST NOW: @jmartNYT and @alexburnsNYT on one of the nuggets from their new book, out tomorrow:

“For all the talk Biden and Obama do about brothers, they’re not that close. They don’t talk super often today. There’s a rivalry there.” pic.twitter.com/N5RGDINx2a

— Nora Neus (@noraneus) May 2, 2022

“Pelosi told a friend that she believed that Obama was jealous of Joe Biden, and this is after the passage of the American Rescue Plan, it’s when he had unveiled his plans for infrastructure spending, more social welfare spending, climate spending, and has all this coverage of, you know, ‘Joe Biden, more transformational even than Barack Obama.’ And we heard over and over again that really bothered Barack Obama, and that he would call up people and say, ‘listen, you gotta understand, I was dealing with a different Democratic Party, and I had more conservative Democrats,'” Burns alleged.

“And of course a year later, things look a little bit different for Joe Biden, and I’m not sure Obama is quite so jealous of him today,” Burns continued.

“For all the talk Biden and Obama do about being brothers and good friends, they’re actually not that close. They don’t talk super often today, there’s a rivalry there,” Martin added. “Biden was always a prideful guy, and he knew he was looked down upon when he was in the White House when he was VP, and he loved the idea of being a bigger historic figure than Obama and for a few months there in 2021, it’s like he had the possibility to do that.”

Obama does not follow Biden on Instagram, with Fox News contributor Kat Timpf saying in early April that it could be a sign of “polite indifference.”

“It’s like if you used to be really close with somebody and then something happens and you’re not anymore, and then you have to see them out somewhere and they treat you with this polite indifference,” Timpf said while describing the relationship between Obama and Biden. “It is so painful, you’ve gotta like, play it cool, and then just listen to ‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac on the way home.”