In the final days before the election, Vice President Kamala Harris is sidelining her boss, President Joe Biden, over concerns that the octogenarian is a political liability, Axios reported.
Harris has no scheduled events with Biden with just eight days until the election. Biden has repeatedly left days open on his schedule to campaign for Harris, but her team has let those days pass without any response, according to sources familiar with the matter.
“He’s a reminder of the last four years, not the new way forward,” one source familiar with the situation told Axios.
Since replacing Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, Harris has worked to distance herself from the octogenarian and the unpopular policies that brought the administration’s approval ratings down to record lows. This dynamic has led to rising tension between Harris’s campaign team and Biden’s senior staff leading up to the election.
One person familiar with the situation compared it to a slow, drawn-out break-up between Biden and Harris. The vice president’s team believes Biden is a risk to Harris on the campaign trail but is wary of directly saying they don’t want the unpopular president to rally for her.
In an email detailing Harris’s Saturday schedule, her campaign highlighted planned events with actress Kerry Washington, Saginaw mayor Brenda Moore (Mich.), Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and others, but Biden’s weekend campaigning in Pittsburgh wasn’t included on the list.
Biden and his team have repeatedly highlighted Harris’s involvement in the White House over the last four years. Earlier this month, Biden praised his vice president for being a “major player” in all of their administration’s actions, saying they were “singing from the same song sheet.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has also said that Harris’s policy aims are “aligned” with Biden, stating, “There’s not been any daylight” between the pair’s decisions.
When asked this month if she would have “done something differently than President Biden,” Harris responded, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”
