harried harris
Biden threatened to fire staff who leaked negative stories about Harris, new book claims
Excerpts from a forthcoming book shed new light on tensions between Vice President Kamala Harris and other members of the Biden administration and on Harris' own frustration with her role, Politico reports.
New York Times journalists Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns describe these struggles in their book, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future, which is due out May 3.
According to one excerpt, President Biden's communications director, Kate Bedingfield, has frequently complained about Harris:
"In private, Bedingfield had taken to noting that the vice presidency was not the first time in Harris's political career that she had fallen short of sky-high expectations: Her Senate office had been messy and her presidential campaign had been a fiasco. Perhaps, she suggested, the problem was not the vice president's staff," Martin and Burns claim.
Bedingfield told Politico that the authors had not fact checked this "unattributed claim" with her. She also described Harris as "a force in this administration."
Another excerpt quotes an unnamed senator "close to" Harris who described the recent years of her political career as a "slow rolling Greek tragedy" and her frustration level as "up in the stratosphere."
Martin and Burns also report that Biden threatened to fire any staffers caught leaking negative stories about Harris to the press.
An Economist/YouGov poll of 1,500 registered voters conducted between March 12 and 15 found that 55 percent of respondents held an unfavorable view of Harris, compared to 37 percent who said they view her favorably.