- President Biden said he was “extremely self-conscious” about being served in the White House.
- He told CNN City Hall that he was “created in a way that you didn’t look for anyone to serve you.”
- Trump had boasted of the White House’s opulence in the first week of his presidency.
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President Joe Biden said he is uncomfortable with how much he is served by the White House staff, while former President Donald Trump bragged about his opulence at a similar time in his presidency.
At a CNN town hall on Tuesday – Biden’s first town hall as president – Biden described how he was getting used to living and working at the White House.
When asked by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, what it was like to be in the White House as president, rather than vice president, Biden joked, “I get up in the morning and look at Jill and say, ‘Where the hell are we?'”
He noted that he had spent time in the Oval Office while serving as vice president, but had never been to the residence before.
He also mentioned the service he is receiving at the White House as president, saying, “I was raised in a way that you didn’t look for anyone to serve you.”
He continued, “I feel extremely embarrassed” because there are so many White House employees waiting for him, including someone “handing me my jacket.”
Biden speaking at the White House State Dining Room on February 5, 2021.
Stefani Reynolds-Pool / Getty Images
Biden’s description contrasts with how Trump described living and working in the White House on the fifth night of his presidency.
In an interview with Maggie Haberman of The New York Times in January 2017, Trump bragged about many of his resources.
He told Haberman during the telephone interview that “these are the most beautiful phones I have ever used in my life”.
He added that everyone who enters the Oval Office is impressed: “I have already received people, they have entered here and just want to be looking for a long time,” he said.
Trump, notoriously, also used an old call button in the Oval Office to order his team’s Diet Cocas. It is unclear what Biden is using this button for now.
In his interview for the Times, Trump also praised the White House resident, calling him “beautiful” and “very elegant”.
About the White House master bedroom, Trump said, “There is something very special when you know Abraham Lincoln slept there.
“Lincoln Bedroom, you know, was his office, and the suite I’m staying in is actually where he slept.”
Then President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in March 2020.
Doug Mills-Pool / Getty Images
“Knowing all of this, it’s different, you know, just pure elegance and size of the room,” added Trump. “There is a lot of history.”
At CNN City Hall, Biden said the White House is very different from Observatory Circle Number One – the vice president’s residence where he lived during President Barack Obama’s administration – and noted the relative freedom he had there: “You you can ride a bike and never leave the property and work out, ”he said.
In comparison, he described the White House as more restrictive, calling it a “golden cage, in terms of being able to go out and do things”.
Biden also noted that “I have only been president for four weeks”, but said it seemed longer.
“And sometimes, because things are going so fast – not because of the burden – it feels like four years,” he said. “It is not because of the burden, it is because there is so much going on that you are constantly focusing on a problem or opportunity.”