‘Harris worried that Biden’s staff looked down on her; she fixated on real and perceived snubs in ways the West Wing found tedious… ‘
Two New York Times reporters reveal in an upcoming book that Vice President Kamala Harris instructed her chief of staff to scold President Joe Biden‘s advisers after she felt insulted by White House aides, Politico reported.
“Some of Harris’s advisers believed the president’s almost entirely white inner circle did not show the vice president the respect she deserved,” Martin and Burns wrote in This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future.
“Harris worried that Biden’s staff looked down on her; she fixated on real and perceived snubs in ways the West Wing found tedious,” they continued. The book’s publication date has been set for May 3, 2002, by Simon & Schuster.
As per Businessinsider, several controversies have created tension in the Biden-Harris administration, including a Vogue magazine cover that Harris considered disrespectful, perceived slights in decorum, and the unpredictable policy responsibilities that Biden has assigned Harris.
Harris objected to the cover photo, in which she wore Converse shoes, skinny jeans, and a blazer, that Vogue chose for a profile piece, titled “Madam Vice President!: Kamala Harris and the New America.”
Vogue also released the same story with a cover photo, which Harris preferred, that showed her in a blue blazer from the waist up.
“Harris was wounded. She felt belittled by the magazine, asking aides: Would Vogue depict another world leader this way?” Martin and Burns wrote.
Harris’s press secretary, Symone Sanders, contacted Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, over the profile photo. Wintour said she chose the picture because it made Harris “relatable.”
Tina Flournoy, Harris’ chief of staff, then contacted Biden officials about the photo.
“The Biden adviser told Flournoy that this was not the time to be going to war with Vogue over a comparatively trivial aesthetic issue,” Martin and Burns wrote. “Tina, the adviser said, these are first-world problems.”
In another instance, Harris sent Flournoy to complain to Anita Dunn, a Biden adviser, that White House aides did not stand for Harris as they did for Biden when she entered the room.
“The vice president took it as a sign of disrespect,” Martin and Burns wrote.
When the administration began, Harris desired a low-profile diplomatic assignment to Nordic countries and the freedom to give her own foreign policy address.
“White House aides rejected the idea and privately mocked it,” Martin and Burns wrote. “More irritating to Biden aides was when they learned the vice president wanted to plan a major speech to outline her view of foreign policy. Biden aides vetoed the idea.”
Instead, she was assigned to the southern border by the Biden administration, calling her the “border czar.”
“Harris was resigned to the assignment,” Martin and Burns wrote, adding that Harris “did not hesitate to chide Biden for characterizing her assignment in those terms.”
Harris was recently assigned to the issue in Ukraine by Biden, just before Russia invaded.
