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Biden: I'm Not Comfortable Being Called 'Goofy Uncle Joe'

Biden: I'm Not Comfortable Being Called 'Goofy Uncle Joe'
CNBC's "Speakeasy with John Harwood"

By    |   Tuesday, 19 April 2016 11:57 AM EDT

The vice president doesn't like people calling him "goofy Uncle Joe."

In an interview with CNBC, Joe Biden says he's been given great responsibilities in his No. 2 slot at the White House.

"I'm not comfortable with Goofy Uncle Joe," Biden tells CNBC. "But one of the things that's important to know — and one of the reasons why, when I first got asked about this job I said no — is there is no inherent power in being vice president."

"When the president asked me to consider this again — and I said yes — he said, 'What do you want?'" Biden adds. "I said, 'I want to be the last guy in the room.' Every assignment he's given me, I've not had to check back. I ran the Recovery Act — beginning, middle and end. I did the Iraq thing."

The issue came up when Biden was asked if he felt any sympathy for the characterizations that have dogged his predecessors — "George H.W. Bush was weak, Dan Quayle was dumb, Al Gore was wooden, Dick Cheney was Darth Vader."

"And by the way, the so-called Goofy Uncle Joe — if you notice, I beat every Republican in every poll when they thought I was running," he points out. "You notice that my favorability was higher than anybody that's running for office in either party."

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Politics
The vice president doesn't like people calling him "goofy Uncle Joe."
biden, comfortable, goofy, uncle, joe
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2016-57-19
Tuesday, 19 April 2016 11:57 AM
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