Obama doesn’t miss ‘hoopla’ of the White House and defends teasing ‘vice president Biden’

“Vice President Biden. Vice President - that was a joke,” says Barack Obama

Barack Obama says he misses the work of being president, but that he doesn’t miss the "hoopla" of the White House.

Speaking on the Today Show after causing a hoopla of his own in Joe Biden’s White House last week, Mr Obama was asked if he was surprised by the negative reaction of observers wondering, "What’s up with that"?

Mr Obama raised eyebrows by continuing the running joke that Mr Biden is not the person in charge at the White House.

"No, look, President Biden and I have an extraordinary friendship as well as a professional relationship," Mr Obama told weatherman Al Roker.

He was at the White House to promote the Affordable Care Act last week when he followed Mr Biden’s own joke about being Mr Obama’s vice president with the same joke about Mr Biden being his vice president.

"Vice president – that was a joke," Mr Obama said after thanking Mr Biden.

First lady Jill Biden has also assured the crowd she was indeed joking when introducing Kamala Harris as president during a White House event to mark Black History Month.

"I just said to make you laugh," Ms Biden said to make clear that was, in fact, a joke.

Mr Biden himself makes the joke often, calling Ms Harris president recently in January and December, and back in March 2021 and several times during the presidential campaign.

Mr Obama said it was "wonderful" to see his old team in the White House last week, which apart from Mr Biden included press secretary Jen Psaki, who was deputy press secretary and deputy communications director in the Obama administration.

"The fact that I could leave, though, was nice," he said.

Mr Obama was happier to leave last week than the "melancholy" of ending his presidency which he described to60 Minutes, or how he told Stephen Colbert that he wanted to continue the work behind the scenes.

"I used to say, if I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a front-man or front-woman and they had an earpiece in and I was just in my basement in my sweats looking through the stuff and I could sort of deliver the lines, but somebody else was doing all the talking and ceremony, I’d be fine with that, because I found the work fascinating," Mr Obama said.

It’s that work that Mr Obama said he still misses.

"There’s nothing that compares to the privilege and honour of serving the American people in the highest office in the land. There are times where I miss the work. I don’t miss the hoopla, though," Mr Obama said on Today.

Hoopla, depending on who is asked, is a colloquial and often disapproving expression of agitated commotion or activity.

"And we’re finding that we can be really productive, contributing citizens in all kinds of other ways," Mr Obama added.