Matteo Renzi even managed to talk to Barack Obama. And on that occasion, since he no longer answered the phone to the President of the United States, he got to know his then deputy better. Or Joe Biden. And he learned to appreciate his human qualities. The leader of Italia Viva tells the story today in an interview with Corriere della Sera. “He represented to us the wise uncle in the administration. A private conversation with him left a lasting impression on me.” The dispute with Obama dates back to September 2014: “Italy was not involved in drafting a statement by the United States and the European G7 countries. And in response, I blocked a press conference at the White House that had already been announced.”
The quarrel
Renzi recalls that “it was necessary to express a common position within NATO on an issue that concerned relations between Russia and Ukraine. Except that Italy was not involved in drafting the document. I then informed privately that I would not sign. Then I could not be found for six hours. From Washington they called insistently and when I decided to answer, I had a historic argument with Obama. He was furious: “My collaborators are waiting here. There are journalists who are wondering why this delay. We are only waiting for you,” he shouted at me. I responded in kind: “Politically, I may be a supporter of Obama but I demand for my country the same treatment reserved for Great Britain, France and Germany.”
The former Prime Minister recalls that at the time the Italian government had ended up being excluded from the calls for drafting documents: “I was bored. I said to Obama: 'I will sign this declaration if you give me the certainty that from now on this will not happen again.' It did not happen again, but the discussion was very lively. And a few days later…”
Biden's Call
The call came from Biden, who was entrusted with the task of repair. “They were always long. They always started with a mention of Wilmington, the city in Delaware where he lived and where he was elected. And each time, he told me about an Italian pizza maker who lived there: ‘You should know that I have always taken the votes of the Italian community in Delaware.’ ‘There will be five Italians in Delaware,’ I replied. Then he showed me his cautious and wise side: ‘You are very young. Think about the future. You are thirty years younger than me…’ He told me anecdotes from political history and finally he put everything back in order. Wonderful lessons,” Renzi recalls.
The meeting in Italy
Then, in 2015, Biden came to Italy for a private trip to a Tuscan village: “He didn’t want to have meetings in Rome. He had asked to speak only with me, but not at Palazzo Chigi to avoid protocol. I didn’t understand. When he arrived, he asked me, ‘Can you come to Villa Taverna?’”
There, the IV leader recalls, “when I was in front of him, I saw a tired man: 'Thanksgiving is coming and I don't want to spend it in the house where we always celebrated it with Beau.' Beau Biden, his favorite son, his war hero, his political heir, had died of a brain tumor. Joe had already lost his first wife and his first daughter in 1972 in a car accident. You can be one of the most powerful men in the world but you remain above all a father. And Biden was a father destroyed by grief. The conversation lasted 45 minutes. Almost only, he spoke and he spoke of the son, of God, of faith, of eternal life.”
Nomination
Finally: “I limited myself to listening to him while he discussed the pain. He had difficulty holding back his tears. I left the conversation shaken. And I was not surprised when in 2016 he was not a candidate for the presidency of the United States: I imagined that there was a personal element in this choice.”
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