Obama, Biden Lunch Together Day After Gates Book Goes Public - East Idaho News
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Obama, Biden Lunch Together Day After Gates Book Goes Public

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Getty 010814 ObamaBidenLunch?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1389209244229Aude Guerrucci-Pool/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Just one day after former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ contempt for the Vice President Joe Biden’s foreign policy acumen became public, President Obama spent the day with the vice president in a series of meetings and a lunch together at the White House.

The White House granted the press rare access to a normally private lunch between the president and the vice president.  Still photographers and a television camera were allowed to briefly photograph the two leaders as they sat in the private dining room located just off the Oval Office, but no editorial presence was allowed in the room.

In the brief photo opportunity, the president and vice president were heard speaking briefly about the weather on Biden’s recent vacation.  As the cameras were escorted out of the room, President Obama said he was trying to fulfill his mission “to be nicer to the White House press corps.”

Earlier in the day, Obama and Biden received the presidential daily briefing together and met with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to discuss reforms to the National Security Agency.  Wednesday afternoon, they will talk with leaders of the intelligence community about NSA reforms before heading into a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry, all behind closed doors.

In his upcoming book, Duty, Memoirs of a Secretary at War, Gates critiques the president and his team, specifically blasting Biden’s foreign policy judgment.

“I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” Gates writes, according to the New York Times.

The White House jumped to Biden’s defense with a statement Tuesday.

“The President disagrees with Secretary Gates’ assessment — from his leadership on the Balkans in the Senate, to his efforts to end the war in Iraq, Joe Biden has been one of the leading statesmen of his time, and has helped advance America’s leadership in the world. President Obama relies on his good counsel every day,” Caitlin Hayden, National Security Council spokesperson, said Tuesday.

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