WASHINGTON (TIP): President Barack Obama is caught between the White House aspirations of two of his closest advisers: Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

For months, White House officials expected Clinton to be the Democratic nominee in the 2016 election. Some of Obama’s top political advisers moved to New York to run her campaign and Obama appeared to give his tacit approval, saying she would be an “excellent president.”

But that bet on Clinton suddenly looks less certain. With Biden weighing his own presidential run more seriously amid signs of weakness in Clinton’s campaign, the White House faces the prospect of a family feud over who will become heir to Obama’s legacy.

“Certainly he’s got something at stake here,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday of Obama’s interest in the 2016 election.

Biden’s recent overtures to donors and Democratic officials have led to palpable awkwardness in the West Wing as aides _ many with close ties to Clinton, the vice president or both try to maintain impartiality.

Earnest raised the prospect that Obama could endorse a candidate in the Democratic primary, though others close to the president say it’s unlikely he’d publicly put his thumb on the scale if Clinton and Biden were locked in a close contest. In picking between Biden and Clinton, Obama would be making a choice between two of the most influential members of his administration.

Obama and Clinton long ago turned their political rivalry from the 2008 primary into an alliance. Clinton left the administration in early 2013 after four years as Obama’s secretary of state, but she and the president still get together for occasional meetings.