Former Obama aide denies he weighed dropping Biden

WASHINGTON — A new book asserts the idea of replacing Vice President Joe Biden with Hillary Rodham Clinton was floated in President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, but the former White House chief of staff denies it.

“Not for a moment was there a serious discussion” of dumping Biden for Clinton, former White House chief of staff Bill Daley said in a nationally broadcast interview, suggesting no one took this proposition directly to Obama.

In their new book “Double Down — Game Change 2012,” authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann report that high-ranking Obama aides weighed recommending he replace Biden with Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time.

Daley confirmed in a “CBS This Morning” interview Friday that the idea “was looked at” by Obama aides.

“But it was never seriously looked at in the sense that there was a belief that it ought to be done or needed to be done,” he said. “ ... And the president, in my opinion, I believe then and I do now, not for a moment would he have ever considered that.”

“Anybody who would have brought this idea to the president in the Oval Office, in my opinion, probably would have been thrown out immediately,” Daley added.

Former campaign manager David Plouffe, in a Twitter post late Thursday, said, “Never any — any consideration of VP/HRC switch. Not even entertained by the only person who mattered. Or most of us. Back to Halloween.”