A new book is claiming that President Joe Biden snapped at his Vice President Kamala Harris so harshly last year that even Republican senators were left feeling uncomfortable by the outburst.
Daily Mail [1] reported that in their book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future [2],” New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns wrote that during a meeting in May of last year, Biden tried to convince Republican lawmakers to support $1 trillion in infrastructure spending. Though Biden was prepared to compromise, Harris disagreed, arguing that the bill was too skimpy.
“Harris thought that there was something missing from the conversation,” they wrote. Martin and Burns added that Harris then shifted the discussion toward Democratic priorities, including family and social spending, saying that she “began to make the case for a larger package than the one Republicans seemed to have in mind.”
“Biden dismissed her comment immediately,” the authors wrote, going on to say that his tone was so harsh “that even the Republican senators were taken aback.” Though they said that Biden was typically “‘scrupulously respectful” of Harris, this moment indicated that there may be some trouble brewing beneath the surface of their relationship.
Martin and Burns also claimed in their book that Biden had some reservations about choosing Harris as his vice president. He specifically had concerns about her “past romantic relationship with Willie Brown, the California politician who appointed Harris to a pair of minor political positions.” Biden reportedly saw their past romance “as the kind of thing that should be off limits.”
Biden’s wife Jill was also reportedly against Harris being his running mate, as she did not like that the Democrat implied her husband was racist during a debate in 2020.
“‘There are millions of people in the United States,’ she began. ‘Why,’ she asked, ‘do we have to choose the one who attacked Joe,’” read an excerpt of the book that was obtained by Fox News. [3]
It was Ron Klain, who is now the White House chief of staff, who reportedly stood by Harris and convinced Biden to pick her as his running mate.
“Yes, Harris had attacked Biden more harshly than any other major candidate in the Democratic primaries. Yes, the Biden family had seen it as a smear and a betrayal. In Klain’s assessment, that would work to Biden’s advantage,” the book stated. “’Choosing Harris will show people that you are magnanimous and forgiving,’ Klain told Biden. ‘It will show the country just what a unifying leader you can be.’”
It seems that Biden may have since come to regret that decision.