‘He has to run because she can\u2019t.’ <\/p>\n
‘She’ was Vice President Kamala Harris. ‘He’ was President Joe Biden. The message was clear: Biden had to run because his team didn\u2019t believe she could. <\/p>\n
‘Then why did you pick her in the first place?’ I asked as I sank back into my seat on Brightstar, the first lady\u2019s plane. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Silence. Deflection. Business as usual. <\/p>\n
We were instructed to parrot one line \u2014 ‘No one runs for president for four years.’ That was the strategy. <\/p>\n
Harris\u2019s forthcoming book, according to recently released excerpts, says what insiders whispered for years: the Biden bubble was full of bullies. The former vice president is finally saying the quiet part out loud. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Biden won the most votes of anyone for president in our country\u2019s history. But he never won the hearts and minds of the American people, and especially not of his own party. That fragile foundation collapsed fast. <\/p>\n
The Biden White House was filled with its share of cartoonist characters out of a badly cast high school version of ‘West Side Story.’ They thought they were a ‘BFD’ because they had worked in a previous administration or because our campaign defied the odds and beat expectations. But they had no instincts for the shifting media and political landscape \u2014 and no instinct for politics as it is now lived and practiced in the age of Donald Trump. <\/p>\n
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi was more direct, ‘I\u2019ve never been that impressed with his political operation,’ referring to Biden\u2019s team. <\/p>\n
There was no pragmatic truth-teller, because no one admitted that we weren\u2019t a movement. We swaggered like we\u2019d won President Barack Obama\u2019s mandate or his congressional majorities. We hadn\u2019t. We lost 13 Democratic House seats on our way in. From the moment Biden won the nomination, no one ever wanted to admit the obvious: Democrats felt stuck with us, not inspired by us. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Inside the White House, the Regina Georges of Biden\u2019s circle ruled like mean girls and policed loyalty. Staff weren\u2019t serving a president and first lady \u2014 they were serving a cult. You never knew when Regina was in charge or when the Bidens were. It was all blurred. <\/p>\n
Joe and Jill Biden were warm, decent, empathetic. But they enabled some of the nastiest and most mean-spirted people I\u2019ve ever encountered in politics. That contradiction defines the Biden era. <\/p>\n
I believed in Joe Biden once. After hearing him and Jill deliver barnburner speeches at the 2018 Human Rights Campaign gala, I was convinced he was the champion to take on Trump. As someone who endured relentless bullying growing up, Biden\u2019s words about standing up for LGBT youth resonated. I left determined to join his effort. <\/p>\n
One year later, Biden was in the race, and I was chief spokesperson to his very influential and active spouse.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In the summer of 2020, Jill reintroduced herself to the country while launching ‘Joey,’ her children\u2019s book about young Joe Biden \u2014 a natural leader who stood up to bullies. <\/p>\n
‘School was where the bullies were.’ He stood up for himself and ‘also defended others from bullies,’ Jill wrote. <\/p>\n
\nSpeaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi was more direct, ‘I\u2019ve never been that impressed with his political operation,’ referring to Biden\u2019s team. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
‘We were expected to stand up to bullies,’ Valerie Biden Owens wrote in her memoir, ‘Growing Up Biden.’ <\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s final mission, he said, was to save the country from Trump \u2014 who Democrats consider to be the ultimate bully. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
But bullies are everywhere, even among Democrats, and despite his brand \u2014 even around Biden. <\/p>\n
When I entered the fraught world of part-time punditry, there were times I questioned the strategic direction of the Biden reelection effort. When the economic message was ‘Bidenomics is working,’ I explained why it was an error and pushed alternatives. When the polls were bad, I said so. How could I say the sky is red when we all know it\u2019s blue? <\/p>\n