Vice President Kamala Harris quickly learned not to stand between President Biden and his negotiations with Congress, when the president once snapped at her so harshly that even Republican senators in the session were shocked.
At a meeting last May, Biden tried to persuade Republican lawmakers to support $1 trillion in infrastructure spending.
And while Biden was willing to compromise, Harris felt the bill was tight.
“Harris thought something was missing from the conversation,” New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns wrote in their book This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future.
She began to steer the conversation toward Democrat priorities, including family and welfare spending, which were originally included in the larger Build Back Better bill.
She “began to push for a bigger package than what Republicans seemed to have in mind.”
“Biden immediately dismissed her comment,” the authors wrote, in a tone so harsh “that even Republican senators were taken aback.”
Biden was usually “embarrassingly respectful” of his deputy, but the moment showed the infrastructure negotiations were his and his alone.
Recent revelations in This Will Not Pass include claims that Jill Biden opposed her husband choosing Harris as his running mate after she attacked him during the June 2019 Democratic primary debate.
It also follows reports of tensions between Biden and Harris over the last year and allegations of bullying and a “toxic culture” by employees at their office.
According to the book, Biden himself expressed reservations about picking Harris for his ticket.
Vice President Kamala Harris quickly learned not to stand between President Biden and his negotiations with Congress, when the president once snapped at her so harshly that even Republican senators in the session were shocked. At a meeting last May, Biden tried to persuade Republican lawmakers to support $1 trillion in infrastructure spending
Noting her “past romantic relationship with Willie Brown, the California politician who appointed Harris to two junior political positions,” the book said Biden described romance “as something that should be taboo.”
Harris had a relationship with Brown, who later served as mayor of San Francisco, between 1994 and 1995 when Harris began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.
At other meetings, Harris was silent and there was less friction.
The reporters wrote about a meeting shortly after Biden and Harris took office that the White House called with governors to discuss coronavirus relief.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Biden has assumed command and is eager to work with governors. But he said Harris’ role in the meeting was “very odd.”
“Harris didn’t say a word,” Hogan reportedly said, leaving him to wonder if she was “just showing respect to the president — didn’t want to step on him.”
Harris reportedly felt belittled by the president’s staff, but Biden’s team didn’t take her concerns seriously.
“Some of Harris’ advisors believed that the president’s almost all-white inner circle did not show the vice president the respect she deserved,” wrote Martin and Burns. “Harris worried that Biden’s staff was looking down on her; it focused on real and perceived snubs in a way that the west wing found boring.’
Harris even dispatched Chief of Staff Tina Fluornoy to berate Biden’s staff for not standing up when she entered the room like they do for the President. “The vice president took it as a sign of disrespect,” the book says.
Biden hired Harris to handle immigration — and the vice president took the opportunity to share her dissatisfaction with the role.
According to the book, Harris’ staff found the task of addressing the southern border crisis politically undesirable and wanted the vice president to have a soft foreign policy role — like overseeing relations with the Nordic countries.
“Harris thought something was missing from the conversation,” New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns wrote in their book This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future.
“Staff held up the prospect of the vice president overseeing relations with the Nordic countries – a low-risk diplomatic role that might have helped Harris adjust to the international stage, welcoming places like Oslo and Copenhagen called,” the authors wrote.
They added that the prospect of overseeing the Nordic countries had been “dismissed” and even “privately derided” by White House staffers.
“Even more irritating for Biden staffers was learning that the vice president was planning a major speech to set out her perspective on foreign policy,” they added in the book. “Biden aides vetoed the idea.”
“Why would a vice president have his own, independently articulated view of global affairs?” Biden’s team questioned.
The border crisis was transferred from Biden’s portfolio to Harris’ shortly after the inauguration.
After a trip to Guatemala and Mexico that drew criticism from the press, Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, “reminded her that she was hardly the first vice president to endure harsh reporting.”
Biden and Harris had reportedly said little about the portfolio they would take on ahead of Inauguration Day.
And while in office, a senator close to Harris claimed the vice president’s frustration was “in the stratosphere” when she realized her political escape looked like a “slow-rolling Greek tragedy.”
“Biden immediately dismissed her comment,” the authors wrote, in a tone so harsh “that even Republican senators were surprised.”
Trump urged Lindsey Graham to tell reporters how good he was at golf and urged him to say how important his endorsements are, the new book claims
Donald Trump was prompting Lindsey Graham to tell two reporters how good he is at golf when the Republican senator called the former president during a press interview, a new book excerpt revealed Monday.
According to her forthcoming book, This Will Not Pass, Trump was speaking to New York Times journalists Jonathan Marin and Alex Burns when Graham called. The ex-president put Graham on the speaker.
“Tell them about the Trump endorsements,” Trump ordered Graham, according to an excerpt obtained by the Washington Post.
Graham, who the author notes had denounced Trump over the Capitol riots just three months earlier, obeyed.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” the South Carolina lawmaker said.
“Supporting President Trump is the most consistent endorsement of any politician I have seen in my 20+ years.”
The performance continued, with Trump adding, “Most importantly, would you tell them one thing.”
“Can Trump play golf?” asked the former president.
Graham coaxed, “If you don’t believe it, go play him.”
Later that day, he reportedly mocked Trump behind his back in an interview with The Times reporter.
Trump’s love of golf is well known. The former president has boasted about making a hole-in-one on numerous occasions
Lawmakers said Trump is a good conversationalist “as long as it’s about him.”
Their conversation came just months after last year’s Capitol riot – when Graham, known as a vocal Trump ally in Congress, said on Jan. 6 “count me out of the ex-president’s circle.”
But he has since reversed course, like many of his Republican counterparts in Congress. Since Trump left office, the senator has touted how often he still connects with the former leader, particularly on the golf course.