A recently published work revealed insight into working as a staff member for Vice President Kamala Harris, and the experience is ostensibly a difficult endeavor. Specifically, Harris allegedly demands for all her staffers to stand up as soon as she enters the room.
Staff routinely engage in the same behavior with President Joe Biden.
This Will Not Pass, written by New York Times journalists Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin, made a weekend appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to provide more detail on the book, which provides extensive insight into various contentious issues shared by Biden and Harris’s staff.
During the press appearance, host Chuck Todd inquired specifically about the passage regarding Harris, namely the fact that she believed “Biden’s staff looked down on her.”
As a result, Harris would “[fixate] on real and perceived snubs in ways the West Wing found tedious.”
One of the “tedious” ways in which Harris demonstrated displeasure was by not standing up in the same way that “they did for Biden.” Harris perceived the failure to stand upon her entry “as a sign of disrespect,” per the authors.
“What was astonishing here is apparently, there was a meeting about this,” Todd added.
“Yes,” Martin replied, noting that the chief of staff for Harris’s office was subsequently tasked with phoning the West Wing and requesting for “staff members to stand” whenever Harris enters a room for any purpose.
“The tensions are deep and they are real between the VP’s office and the West Wing,” Martin continued, adding that the incidents with Harris reveal “what this White House is really like.”
Martin also noted that the 2024 election is one of the biggest issues overshadowing the White House, especially over whether or not Biden will run.
“And if not, is it going to be VP Harris?” Martin questioned, “that is the mood music hanging over the entire Democratic Party right now, [along with] Biden’s poor numbers.”
