Scoop: Biden world explodes at Kamala Harris' new book

https://www.axios.com/2025/09/11/biden-harris-new-book-uproar

Former aides to Joe Biden reacted with rage Wednesday to an excerpt from 
Kamala Harris' upcoming book in which she said the ex-president was 
"reckless" to run again and accused Biden's team of sabotaging her during 
her vice presidency.

Why it matters: The Biden and Harris camps publicly have claimed they were 
united through the four years of Biden's presidency, but now Harris is 
trying to distance herself from him — after not doing so during her short 
run for president.

The release of the excerpt from her book, "107 Days" — due out Sept. 23 — 
has exposed years of hurt feelings and frustrations.
"Vice President Harris was simply not good at the job," said one former 
Biden White House official. "She had basically zero substantive role in 
any of the administration's key work streams, and instead would just dive 
bomb in for stilted photo ops that exposed how out of depth she was."
Biden is "not the reason she struggled in office or tanked her 2019 
[presidential] campaign," the ex-official said. "Or lost the 2024 
campaign, for that matter. The independent variable there is the vice 
president, not Biden or his aides."
State of play: In Harris' book excerpt published Wednesday morning in The 
Atlantic, she criticized Biden and his team's decision to run for re-
election at age 81.

" 'It's Joe and Jill's decision.' We all said that, like a mantra, as if 
we'd all been hypnotized. Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In 
retrospect, I think it was recklessness," Harris wrote.
"The stakes were simply too high. This wasn't a choice that should have 
been left to an individual's ego, an individual's ambition."
Harris notes that in retrospect, she "perhaps" should have spoken up at 
the time but didn't because it would seem like a power grab. "I was in the 
worst position to make the case that he should drop out," she wrote.
She also said Biden's team repeatedly undermined her during her vice 
presidency and didn't see her success as his success.

"Their thinking was zero-sum: If she's shining, he's dimmed. None of them 
grasped that if I did well, he did well," Harris wrote. "His team didn't 
get it."
Harris added: "When the stories [about her] were unfair or inaccurate, the 
president's inner circle seemed fine with it. Indeed, it seemed as if they 
decided I should be knocked down a little bit more."
What they're saying: Former Biden White House officials argued that Harris 
is trying to scapegoat Biden to try to mask her own failures and 
shortcomings, according to interviews with a dozen former aides.

"I'm not sure the very robust defense of not having the courage to speak 
up in the moment about Biden running is quite as persuasive as she thinks 
it is. If this is her attempt at political absolution: Lots of luck in 
your senior year," said one former Biden aide, a nod to a longtime Biden 
saying.
The same aide, referring to Harris' duties in trying to reduce 
unauthorized migration, argued: "On the border stuff in particular I'd 
also say, if she had spent a fraction of the time and energy doing the 
work that she did on complaining, about how she was perceived, she would 
have been perceived a whole lot better."
As for Harris potentially running for president in 2028, another ex-Biden 
aide quipped: "We're not going back!," a line Harris used on the 2024 
campaign trail.
Former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain was more conciliatory.

"I thought she did a good job as [vice president] and I feel badly that 
she found the experience negative," Klain said.
Other former Biden aides said he made a mistake picking Harris as vice 
president in the first place and fumed that Harris was now using 
Democratic Party resources to sell a book that could divide the party.
Between the lines: Harris was not only silent internally about Biden 
running again, but also publicly attacked people who raised concerns about 
the president — including special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated 
Biden's handling of classified documents.

After Hur wrote a report that called Biden's memory "hazy," "fuzzy," 
"faulty," and "poor," Harris said the report "could not be more wrong on 
the facts and clearly politically motivated, gratuitous."
Harris wrote in her book that she didn't believe Biden was incapacitated 
but allowed that "at 81, Joe got tired. That's when his age showed in 
physical and verbal stumbles."
The other side: The anger at Harris is not universal among Biden aides. 
Some said they're glad she finally spoke out about how the Biden White 
House didn't always have her back.

"We all know that the Biden folks treated her and her team like sh*t. We 
never thought she would actually say anything," said one former Biden 
aide. "The staffers across a range of ages and positions that I'm talking 
to are proud of her."
A former senior Biden White House official said Harris was right that 
Biden shouldn't have run for reelection, and that not enough aides 
appreciated Harris.

The official, however, added: "There were others on the Biden team, 
though, who really tried to help her thrive as VP. But she and her team 
did not seize that support and make the most of it. It is all a tragedy."


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Every day is an IQ test. Some pass, some, not so much.

Thank you for cleaning up the disasters of the 2008-2017, 2020-2024 Obama 
/ Biden / Harris fiascos, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.