Explosive New Report Reveals ‘Increasingly Fraught’ Relations Between Biden and Harris Teams as ‘Tension’ Mounts Ahead of Election

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Allies close to President Joe Biden and those running Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign reported “tensions” between the two camps in a report published Sunday morning by Axios.

Alex Thompson reported he spoke to 10 people “familiar with the situation” who said that while all parties want to see Harris elected next month, some glaring issues have emerged. Biden’s embrace of his final months in the Oval Office and Harris’s desire to defeat former President Donald Trump has led to a tense environment and a lack of trust with just three weeks until the election.

Thompson reported :

The relationship between Kamala Harris’ team and Joe Biden’s White House has been increasingly fraught in the final weeks before Election Day, 10 people familiar with the situation tell Axios. Biden’s team wants Harris to win the election, but many senior Biden aides remain wounded by the president being pushed out of his re-election bid and are still adjusting to being in a supporting role on the campaign trail.

[…]

Some on the Harris team say that top White House aides aren’t sufficiently coordinating Biden’s messaging and schedule to align with what’s best for the vice president’s campaign.

One example of the reported disconnect between the two camps was Harris’s public criticism of Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last week as his state prepared for Hurricane Milton but he did not field a call from her. The criticism was followed by public praise of the governor from Biden, who said DeSantis had been both “gracious” and “cooperative.”

A Harris campaign staffer told Axios, “The White House is lacking someone in the room thinking first and foremost about how things would affect the campaign.”

There have also been questions among staffers who have worked with both Biden and Harris in recent months about where their loyalties lie, Thompson’s report claimed.

The White House denied any bad blood between the two sides, while the Harris campaign declined to comment.

A person described as a Biden administration official told Axios, “Everyone from the president on down knows how important the election is, and we always anticipated a number of staff would want to transition from the administration to the campaign for the final stretch.”

Thompson concluded in his report, “There is frustration about coordination among senior staffers on both sides, but much of the mid-level staff is working well together, people familiar with the dynamic told Axios.”