President Biden allegedly suspected Harris team of targeting VP rivals with negative press coverage

During the vetting process to name his vice presidential running mate in 2020, Joe Biden reportedly questioned whether advisers to Kamala Harris were behind the flood of negative press coverage that was given to some of her rivals.

The authors of the book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future,” wrote that “something about this seemed more deliberate, even targeted” as Biden and his advisers searched for a reliable No. 2 who would not hurt his chances in a general election.

The bad press was “aimed at all of the most formidable Black women under consideration,” wrote Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns of the New York Times. “[E]xcept for Kamala Harris.”

“Biden was startled by some of the intra-state factional attacks on Harris by her fellow Democrats, including members of the state’s large congressional delegation,” the authors wrote in the book set to be published on May 3.

Prominent California Democrats and political operatives had allegedly vouched for Bass when her name began circulating, with some “explicitly” urging her as an alternative to Harris.

While considering choices like Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) and former national security adviser Susan Rice, they faced excessive scrutiny of which Martin and Burns wrote, “something about this seemed more deliberate, even targeted,” the Examiner reported.

Bass had to face remarks from her past praising the Church of Scientology and answer why she had warmly embraced Cuban dictator Fidel Castro upon meeting him. Meanwhile, Rice was facing criticism for her management style, the Examiner detailed.

“Even Joe Biden wondered aloud: Was Harris’s team driving this?” The authors went onto say. The authors also stated that Biden demonstrated with his recent appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, Biden had narrowed his list to primarily black women.

Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain had insisted Harris was the best choice from the onset. Of Klain, the book also reports him to be a divisive figure in the party. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was chief among his detractors.

“Not all Democrats shared Biden’s admiration for Klain; some party leaders grumbled about his hard-charging manner and expansive intellectual confidence. The Speaker of the House was one of those Democrats,” the authors wrote. “Late in the 2020 campaign, Pelosi grew openly annoyed when an adviser urged her to consult with Klain about health care legislation. What, she asked, does Ron Klain know about anything?”