Former Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Biden's White House because she did not support her during her presidential campaign of 2024, according to fragments from her upcoming memoirs, 107 days, published by the Atlantic.
“They had a huge comms team; they had Karine Jean-Pierre briefing in the printing rooms every day. But something positive was said about my work or some defense against false attacks was almost impossible,” wrote Harris.
She claimed that even then stories about her were unfair or inaccurate, the assistants of the president seemed satisfied to allow negative coverage to continue. “Indeed, it seemed as if they decided that I had to be brought down a little more,” Harris said.
Undermined in foreign policy and border issues
Harris quoted several examples where she felt undermined. She remembered a meeting in 2021 with French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at defrosting tensions between France and the US after the security pact of Australia-Uk-us.
The headlines mocked her to use a “French accent” during the trip, which she rejected as “total nonsense”, but said the White House allowed the coverage to overshadow its diplomatic performance.
Harris also criticized her treatment on domestic issues. On the task of managing migration on the southern border, she said she received no support when Republicans wrongly held her role as a 'Border Tsar'. “Nobody in the White House Comms team helped me to effectively push back and explain what I really had struck to do, nor to emphasize one of the progress I had made,” she wrote.
Personnel dynamics and perception
Harris said the White House sometimes fed negative stories about her. “Even worse, I often heard that the President's staff added fuel to negative stories that came up around me. A story that took a stubborn attitude was that I had a 'chaotic' office and unusually high staff course during my first year,” she said.
She also emphasized the Zero-Sum thinking among Biden assistants. “Their thinking was zero-sum: if she shines, he is dimmed. None of them grabbed that if I did well, he would do it well … His team didn't understand,” wrote Harris.
Memoirs and elections after
The memoirs investigates the challenges with which Harris was confronted during her 2024 campaign, which eventually ended with losing the presidential race to Donald Trump. The book, with details about her months of campaign and experiences as a vice -president, will be released on September 30.
