The Joe Biden and Kamala Harris fallout reached a head in 2024. The fallout has been terrible for Democrats.
Because now a Washington, D.C. insider has leaked dirt the Biden team has on Kamala Harris.
According to journalist Mark Halperin, speaking on “The Morning Meeting” on Friday, aides to former President Joe Biden are prepared to disclose damaging information about former Vice President Kamala Harris if she criticizes him. On Thursday, Harris revealed plans for a September book detailing her 2024 presidential campaign, which she is already promoting. Halperin, reporting via his 2WAY platform, stated that Biden’s team made significant efforts to support Harris in her roles as vice president and presidential candidate but ultimately deemed her ineffective.
“I’m going to break a little news here, okay? We talk all the time about what did Kamala Harris know and when did she know it about his cognitive decline … if the Biden people decide that Kamala Harris is coming after Joe Biden, wait till you hear the Palinesque stories about how much they tried to help her be prepared to be vice president and be in a position to run — and how much they decided: not happening,” Halperin said. “She’s not up to this.”
He continued, “And if the Biden people feel threatened, you will hear stories about Kamala Harris as vice president that will not make her look good. Okay? So there’s a closeness to the couples — it’s not like they’re at war currently — but I’m telling you, if Joe Biden feels threatened, if his people feel threatened by her, this will escalate in a big way. And she will have a hard time defending against the stories if that dam bursts. They were extraordinary in trying to help her do the job of vice president. They gave her every opportunity. And they found in some instances that she had some issues.”
On July 21, 2024, Biden withdrew from his reelection bid and endorsed Harris the same day. In the November 2024 election, Harris lost all seven swing states and the popular vote to President Donald Trump.
In an October 2024 appearance on “The View,” Harris responded to co-host Sunny Hostin’s question about whether she would have taken a different approach from Biden during their four years in office, saying she would not have changed anything.
“There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of, and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact, the work we have done, for example, capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month for our seniors,” she said.
In another October 2024 interview with NBC News chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander, who asked what she “would have done differently,” Harris declined to critique Biden’s policies.
“I need to be very candid with you, even including Mike Pence, vice presidents are not critical of their presidents,” Harris told Alexander. “I think that really actually, in terms of the tradition of it and also just going forward, it does not make for a productive and important relationship… Going forward, there is no question that I’d bring my own experiences and my own life experiences.”
Harris has consistently denied any claims that Biden displayed cognitive decline during their tenure.
Tensions between the teams of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been documented in various reports, highlighting friction that predates Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. These accounts, drawn from multiple news outlets, reveal a complex relationship marked by differing priorities, communication breakdowns, and mutual frustrations.
One early source of strain emerged during Harris’s tenure as vice president, particularly in 2021, when she was tasked with addressing the root causes of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. A November 2021 CNN report detailed discontent within Harris’s team, with aides feeling she was given politically challenging assignments without adequate support from Biden’s inner circle. Some staffers described a lack of clear direction and resources, which they believed set Harris up for criticism.
Conversely, Biden’s team expressed concerns about Harris’s performance. A Politico article from July 2021 cited anonymous White House officials who described Harris as unprepared for high-stakes responsibilities and prone to defensiveness when offered guidance. These officials claimed her team’s high turnover—attributed to internal dysfunction—further strained coordination with Biden’s staff.
The border issue remained a point of contention. An Axios report in 2022 noted that Biden aides were frustrated by Harris’s reluctance to engage publicly on immigration, perceiving it as a refusal to share political risk. Harris’s defenders, however, argued that the administration failed to clarify her role, leaving her vulnerable to Republican attacks framing her as the “border czar.”
By 2023, tensions surfaced over campaign strategy as Biden prepared for his reelection bid. A Washington Post article reported that Harris’s team pushed for a more prominent role in the campaign, believing she could energize key demographics like young voters and minorities. Biden’s advisers, however, prioritized a cautious approach centered on the president, sidelining Harris from major decision-making, according to sources cited in the piece.
When Biden exited the race in July 2024, endorsing Harris, the transition exposed further rifts. A New York Times report from August 2024 described Biden aides feeling blindsided by Harris’s rapid consolidation of campaign infrastructure, with some believing she distanced herself from Biden’s record too quickly. Harris’s team countered that she needed to establish her own identity to compete against Trump.
A December 2024 Reuters article quoted former Biden staffers who blamed Harris’s campaign for failing to leverage Biden’s legislative accomplishments, like the Inflation Reduction Act. Harris’s allies, in turn, argued that Biden’s low approval ratings and perceived cognitive decline—despite Harris’s public denials—were liabilities she couldn’t overcome.
