NEW BOOK EXPOSES TENSIONS BETWEEN BIDEN AND HARRIS’ CAMPAIGNS
A new book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson reveals the complex and often contentious relationship between former Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Joe Biden during their respective campaigns. The book, titled “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” highlights concerns about Biden’s cognitive decline and the political fallout of his decision to run for re-election. The authors detail the internal tensions that likely impacted Harris’ campaign, with her team feeling disrespected and undervalued by the Biden inner circle.
Despite Harris’ 107 days to convince the American people to elect her the next president, the strained relationship with Biden’s team created significant challenges for her campaign. The book also examines the choices made in selecting Harris as Biden’s running mate in 2020, suggesting that some within the Biden team believed Gretchen Whitmer might have been a better choice. These tensions, along with the challenges of managing a struggling campaign, ultimately contributed to the difficulties Harris faced in the 2024 election.
Former first lady Jill Biden resented Harris after hitting him hard during the first Democratic primary in 2019 for opposing the Department of Education’s busing program to integrate public schools. “That little girl was me,” Harris said on the debate stage, drawing criticism from some within the Biden team. “Many on the Biden team felt that Harris didn’t put in the work and was also just not a very nice person. Several quietly expressed buyer’s remorse: They should have picked Whitmer,” the authors note.
The book also highlights the internal conflict within the Biden team regarding Harris’ role in the campaign. “Harris and her advisers felt it. Her aides got the impression that doing more than the bare minimum to help was considered an act of disloyalty to Biden,” Tapper and Thompson wrote. “Some of that culture carried over into the White House.” Biden privately called Harris a “work in progress” and was not confident she could beat then-former President Donald Trump in 2024.
As the 2024 election approached, the tensions between Biden and Harris’ teams became more pronounced. When Biden dropped out of the race after his disastrous debate performance in summer 2024, Harris inherited his struggling campaign, and her old boss soon became a “liability.” The book describes how Harris was caught in the crosshairs of Biden’s relentless gaffes and missteps as she tried to walk a fine line between loyalty to Biden and distancing herself from his failing campaign.
The book also touches on the political fallout from Biden’s decision to run again. The Fox News Voter Analysis in 2024 found that 52% of voters said Trump was the better candidate to handle immigration, while just 36% said Harris. Additionally, it was a top issue for voters, with 20% saying it was the most important issue facing the country. Harris faced the brunt of criticism for the surge in border crossings during the Biden-Harris administration as the Trump campaign trolled her as the “border czar.”
The book’s authors argue that while Harris had “great affection for Joe,” her loyalty fired back when she told “The View” she would not have done anything differently than Biden as president. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris said – an instant attack ad for the Trump administration as they highlighted the Biden-Harris administration’s record on immigration, the withdrawal from Afghanistan and inflation.
“What is he doing?” Harris asked her team after Biden donned a Trump 2024 hat at a 9/11 memorial gathering at the Shanksville Fire Station, less than a month before the election. “This is completely unhelpful. And so unnecessary,” Harris told her team, according to the book. “That would be, the Harris campaign decided, the last time she would do a public event with the president before the election.”
However, Biden still wanted a role in the campaign, Tapper and Thompson said, as he saw former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama speaking at rallies on the campaign trail. “He didn’t seem to understand what a liability he had become.”
When one of Trump’s supporters called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during a Madison Square Garden rally about a week before the election, what should have been a political layup for Democrats, became another mess for Harris to clean up. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden said on a Voto Latino Zoom call.
While Biden was creating a political mess for Harris to clean up, Trump seized the opportunity to claim the narrative, sporting a high-visibility vest at a rally in battleground Michigan and hosting an impromptu press gaggle from the front seat of a garbage truck that was decked out in Trump decals.
“By the end of the campaign, she had helped the Democratic Party, but her own candidacy was barely treading water. And the albataser that was Joe Biden kept getting heavier,” Tapper and Thompson said.