‘Their thinking was zero-sum,’ former VP says of Biden’s team: ‘If she’s shining, he’s dimmed’
Kamala Harris tears into Joe Biden’s White House team in her forthcoming book, accusing Biden aides of failing to defend her record and intentionally knocking her down, according to an excerpt released Wednesday by The Atlantic.
“When Fox News attacked me on everything from my laugh, to my tone of voice, to whom I’d dated in my 20s, or claimed I was a ‘DEI hire,’ the White House rarely pushed back with my actual résumé,” Harris writes in 107 Days, her memoir set to be published on September 23. “They had a huge comms team; they had Karine Jean-Pierre briefing in the pressroom every day. But getting anything positive said about my work or any defense against untrue attacks was almost impossible.”
In one instance, “the West Wing was displeased” when Harris delivered a 2024 speech in Selma, Ala. “I was castigated for, apparently, delivering it too well,” she writes.
“Their thinking was zero-sum,” Harris says of Biden’s team: “If she’s shining, he’s dimmed. None of them grasped that if I did well, he did well. That given the concerns about his age, my visible success as his vice president was vital.”
Biden aides are not the only people to criticize Harris. Democratic donors have recently blasted her presidential campaign last fall as “pathetic” and “traumatizing.” She ended her campaign with more than $20 million in debt, which the Democratic National Committee quietly paid off while leading donors to believe their money was going toward future elections. The party itself has been in turmoil for months, beset by financial troubles, bitter infighting, and sinking approval ratings.
According to the excerpt, Harris believes that Biden’s inner circle did not want to see her succeed.
Biden’s inner circle “seemed fine” with letting what Harris described as “unfair or inaccurate” stories about her go unanswered. Harris pointed to her much-criticized role as “border czar” as an example, saying that she “shouldered the blame for the porous border” and that “no one around the president advocated, Give her something she can win with.”
“Indeed,” Harris writes, “it seemed as if they decided I should be knocked down a little bit more.”
That attitude lasted until the end of the administration, according to Harris. In Biden’s farewell address, she writes, “it was almost nine minutes into the 11-minute address before he mentioned me.”
