For most Americans, the first 10 months of the Biden administration have been a disaster. A new report suggests Vice President Kamala Harr...
For most Americans, the first 10 months of the Biden administration have been a disaster. A new report suggests Vice President Kamala Harris is one of those Americans who is suffering through the administration’s incompetence.
West Wing aides are growing increasingly frustrated with “entrenched dysfunction and lack of focus” from Harris and her staff, CNN reported Sunday. The outlet interviewed almost three dozen current and former staffers for Harris, administration officials, donors, advisers and Democratic Party operatives, and they reportedly painted a discouraging picture.
“Harris is struggling with a rocky relationship with some parts of the White House, while long-time supporters feel abandoned and see no coherent public sense of what she’s done or been trying to do as vice president,” CNN reported.
At the same time, the outlet said Harris’ supporters are equally frustrated with White House officials who they feel are not putting Harris in a position to succeed.
“Kamala Harris is a leader but is not being put in positions to lead,” a top donor to President Joe Biden said. “That doesn’t make sense. We need to be thinking long term, and we need to be doing what’s best for the party.
“You should be putting her in positions to succeed, as opposed to putting weights on her,” he said, speaking indirectly to Biden. “If you did give her the ability to step up and help her lead, it would strengthen you and strengthen the party.”
However, when the president has given Harris a chance to lead, she has largely failed to do so.
He tapped Harris to lead the response to the border crisis in March, The Associated Press reported. Since then, Harris has visited the border just one time, and it was far from the areas where illegal immigration is at its highest.
Border agents are still facing huge numbers of illegal border crossings, some of which are committed by convicted criminals.
But according to a former aide to Harris, her sinking approval rating is not due to her own failures, but rather systemic racism within the Biden administration.
“It’s hard to miss the specific energy that the White House brings to defend a white man, knowing that Kamala Harris has spent almost a year taking a lot of the hits that the West Wing didn’t want to take themselves,” the aide said.
These comments show just how dysfunctional the relationship between Biden and Harris is. Members of Biden’s own party are turning on him and accusing him of racism because of the incompetence of his administration and particularly his vice president.
Obviously, none of this is helpful optically to an administration that is already floundering. For that reason, multiple White House staffers attempted to cover for Harris after the damming report.
“For anyone who needs to hear it. @VP is not only a vital partner to @POTUS but a bold leader who has taken on key, important challenges facing the country — from voting rights to addressing root causes of migration to expanding broadband,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Sunday night.
White House chief of staff Ronald Klain also joined in on the action by retweeting a sycophantic celebration of Harris from Mayor Robert Garcia of Long Beach, California.
“Our @VP Kamala Harris just finished a highly successful trip where she strengthened diplomatic relationships,” the tweet said. “She takes on the most complex assignments because she’s capable and smart. She’s a great leader who also happens to be funny and kind. And that’s the tweet.”
Scramble as they might, those within the walls of the White House cannot hide their dysfunction forever. Americans are growing increasingly tired of Biden, Harris and the entire administration just 10 months into it, and tensions are rising between its own members.
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