Reports say that President Joe Biden doesn’t like how Vice President Kamala Harris does her job. But who could blame her for not knowing what that means?
According to a White House official, Harris is gearing up for another presidential campaign alongside Biden, despite concerns she may not be the best fit for the role.
The tension in their relationship stems from Harris’s inability to help Biden with his so-called “long” list of to-dos.
“A point of tension in their relationship is that I don’t think that the president sees her as somebody who takes anything off of his plate” due to a “fear of messing up,” one former White House official told Reuters.
Another source said that Biden, who hasn’t said anything about running for re-election yet, wants to run again because he thinks Harris won’t be able to beat former President Trump in 2024 if the 80-year-old gets sick before then.
“If he did not think she was capable, he would not have picked her. But it is a question of consistently rising to the occasion,” the former White House official said. “I think his running for re-election is less about her and more about him, but I do think that she and the Democratic bench [are] a factor.”
The official said that getting rid of Harris, who was the first vice president who was both black and Asian-American, would hurt Biden’s chances of getting re-elected.
“I think this is actually one of the fundamental strategic challenges for (Biden) … how to navigate this, it’s almost impossible for them to make a change,” the White House official said. “You cannot replace your first Black woman vice president and think that Black people and women will just vote for you. He needs her.”
Democrats say that Biden’s re-election campaign will be Harris’s chance to shine, even though she hasn’t done a good job as vice president, like securing the southern border.
“She is at her best when she gets back to her prosecutorial roots and when she can really make a case, and Democrats are going to need to make one hell of a case to win in 2024,” Democratic strategist Lis Smith said.
