Joe Biden has taken a swipe at Barack Obama’s administration after he stepped out of the race to become the Democrats’ presidential nominee.
The US president on Tuesday referred to an incident in 2012 when he appeared to have forced Mr Obama to change his stance on same-sex marriage.
Mr Biden was asked by reporters outside the White House about his “legacy for LGBTQ Americans”.
“Well, I’m really proud of my position,” he said. “I was the first guy to come out for gay marriage. Remember that little problem with the Obama administration?”
In 2012, then vice-president Mr Biden announced on television that he supported same-sex marriage before Mr Obama had committed to the policy in public.
“I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, and women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying men and women, are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press show.
“Quite frankly, I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that.”
The abrupt change in stance from Mr Biden effectively forced Mr Obama to announce, three days later, that he also supported gay marriage.
The decision by Mr Biden to reference an incident from 12 years ago suggests tension remains between the two men after Mr Obama joined a group of Democrats who privately called on the president to quit the 2024 election race.
Mr Obama was reported to have expressed concerns to Biden that he could not win against Donald Trump, adding weight to calls from senior sitting Democrats that ultimately forced the US president to stand aside.
Although in public Mr Obama was supportive of Mr Biden’s campaign, his private concerns filtered into the US media and undermined the campaign. He did not endorse Kamala Harris, who received Mr Biden’s immediate support, for two days.
In a statement after Mr Biden’s decision to leave the presidential race on July 21, Mr Obama described his former running mate as “one of America’s most consequential presidents” and praised his decision to step back.
“For him to look at the political landscape and decide that he should pass the torch to a new nominee is surely one of the toughest in his life,” he said.
“But I know he wouldn’t make this decision unless he believed it was right for America.”
Mr Obama’s former White House aides were among the loudest voices calling for Mr Biden to step back.
David Axelrod and Van Jones, two former staffers, expressed serious concerns about Mr Biden’s candidacy immediately after the first presidential debate on June 27, when he gave a disastrous and uncertain performance on a stage with Trump.
Mr Obama and Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, were among the Democrats who spoke privately to Mr Biden in the following weeks as he denied that his age and health would prevent him from winning the election.
Since Ms Harris took over the party’s ticket, polls show she has almost erased Trump’s lead in the swing states.
A new survey by Morning Consult and Bloomberg, published on Wednesday, showed she had an average 48 per cent support in seven battleground states, to Trump’s 47 per cent.
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