Details regarding one of the worst-kept secrets of the 2024 election cycle continue to trickle out of the White House.
In short, President Joe Biden and those closest to him still resent his unceremonious dismissal from the top of the Democratic presidential ticket in July, when party leaders carried out a coup against Biden and pressured him to withdraw from the race, resulting in the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Nearly three months later, according to Axios, Biden and Harris staffers report lingering animosities.
Axios cited “10 people familiar with the situation.”
From the perspective of at least one “close Harris ally,” that situation has descended into unnecessary pettiness.
“They’re too much in their feelings,” the unnamed Harris ally said of Biden loyalists at the White House.
Meanwhile, a Harris campaign operative complained about the lack of coordination between the two camps.
“The White House is lacking someone in the room thinking first and foremost about how things would affect the campaign,” the operative told Axios.
Curiously, White House spokesman Andrew Bates downplayed the disconnect.
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“President Biden endorsed Vice President Harris immediately after leaving the race, rejecting other approaches that would divide the party, and has attested to her leadership abilities and continually made clear his support for her,” Bates said.
Axios did note that the frustration seems primarily to have gripped “senior staffers on both sides.” As one would expect, lower-level operatives have done as instructed without public complaint.
All of this, of course, makes for a fascinating subplot to the 2024 election. The question is what to make of it.
On one hand, Biden’s bitterness toward his fellow Democratic elites, including former President Barack Obama, seems well established.
In fact, during his first and only debate against Harris last month, former President Donald Trump poured gasoline on that fire when he suggested that Biden actually “hates” his vice president.
“I’ll give you a little secret. He hates her,” Trump said in a clip posted to the social media platform X.
President Trump says Joe Biden actually “hates” Kamala Harris, he should after she forced him to give up on his campaign pic.twitter.com/OUiRJQseG8
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) September 11, 2024
Biden, of course, has governed like a tyrant. So one can easily believe that he feels intense bitterness and even hatred.
On the other hand, the president has also suffered obvious cognitive decline. Honest people have commented on it for years. Only after Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate against Trump, however, when the president’s brain repeatedly malfunctioned, did the establishment media finally admit the problem then call for the president to withdraw from the race.
With that in mind, do we dare credit Biden with the subtle sabotage of Harris? Does the mentally-challenged president seem capable of subtlety?
Well, consider the evidence.
On Sept. 11, the day after the Trump-Harris debate, Biden enjoyed one of the few good-natured moments of his otherwise angry and catastrophic presidency when he jokingly played to a group of Trump-supporting firefighters by donning a red “Trump” hat.
Then, as Hurricane Milton approached Florida last week, Biden praised the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. The president did this despite the fact that Harris had already precipitated a childish feud with the governor.
Or did Biden speak well of DeSantis because of the governor’s feud with the vice president?
Whatever the case might be, the president has behaved like a man filled with bitterness. And for once the anger that flows from that bitterness seems altogether justified.
In sum, whether Biden has actually carried out a subtle campaign of sabotage — or whether he even has the cognitive capacity for such subtlety — the Axios report constitutes the latest piece of compelling evidence to suggest that since his reluctant departure from the race nearly three months ago, the president’s bitterness toward Harris and others has not abated.
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