News/Commentary

Biden calls VP Harris a ‘work in progress’ in new book, was ‘annoyed’ at her husband’s complaining

December 21, 2022 | | Print Article

According to a new book, President Biden was evidently frustrated with Vice President Kamala Harris at the beginning of his administration, calling her a “work in progress” and expressing annoyance at Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff for complaining about assignments she received.

An excerpt from “The Fight of His Life,” which was obtained by Politico, claims that the president complained about Harris and her hubby to a friend. Author Chris Whipple told the media outlet that he had “extensive access to Biden administration officials while writing the book.”

“Biden was annoyed,” the book contends. “He hadn’t asked Harris to do anything he hadn’t done as vice president — and she’d begged him for the voting rights assignment.”

Biden wasn’t the only one purportedly unhappy with Harris and her team. An unnamed White House adviser expressed contempt for those surrounding the vice president, stating that her “inner circle didn’t serve her well in the presidential campaign — and they are ill-serving her now.”

Harris was infamously assigned the catastrophe at the southern border and has botched the handling of it since day one. She notoriously and very publicly flubbed interview questions with NBC News host Lester Holt when confronted in June 2021 on whether she would ever visit the border.

“Do you have any plans to visit the border?” he asked Harris.

“At some point, you know, we are going to the border. We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border,” Harris disingenuously responded.

“You haven’t been to the border,” Holt bluntly told her.

Whipple told Politico in an interview that it appeared the Biden administration worked things out in its second year. Millions of Americans and Republicans, in general, would strongly disagree with that assessment.

“What makes this such a great story is that Joe Biden and his team really turned it all around, I think,” he asserted.

“I think Biden’s presidency is the most consequential of my lifetime,” Whipple said during the interview. “His legislative record is comparable to LBJ’s and he’s been underestimated every step of the way. But it’s also been a tale of two presidencies –- the first year and the second year.”

Whipple previously wrote a history of White House chiefs of staff called “The Gatekeepers.” His new book features extensive interviews with Biden’s current chief of staff, Ron Klain. He credits him with “patient, nose-to-the-grindstone stewardship.”

It also covers the way Klain blamed everyone but Biden for the Afghanistan nightmare, including those in the Obama administration.

“It was tough, because, as you well know, this is the most battened-down, disciplined, leak-proof White House in modern times,” he laughably told Politico.

The author said that the president and vice president both only agreed to answer questions submitted in writing.

“We respect that there will be no shortage of books written about the administration containing a wide variety of claims,” White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson asserted in a statement. “We don’t plan to engage in confirmations or denials when it comes to the specifics of those claims. The author did not give us a chance to verify the materials that are attributed here.”

“The Fight of His Life” is due out on Jan. 17.

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