Finger-pointing advisers to Vice President Harris and President Biden agree on one thing: President-elect Trump’s victory is the other one’s fault.
Why it matters: Biden premised his presidency on preventing Trump from returning to the Oval Office: He failed. So, someone needs to bear the blame.
- In response to Trump’s decisive victory, aides in both camps are blaming the other for being more responsible, according to interviews with more than a dozen people in the White House and Harris’ campaign.
What they’re saying: One Democrat familiar with the White House’s dynamics pointed a finger at Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, Biden’s top political aides: “Mike and Steve will have a lot to answer for — having him run” for re-election at 80 years old.
- One person involved with Harris’ team told Axios: “The 107-day Harris campaign was nearly flawless. The Biden campaign that preceded it was the opposite.”
- Another person involved in the vice president’s campaign said: “We did what we could. I think the odds against us were insurmountable,” referring to Biden’s low approval ratings and his late exit after the disastrous June debate that raised questions about his mental fitness.
- In an implicit criticism of Biden’s team, top Harris aide David Plouffe posted on X that the campaign had “dug out of a deep hole.” He later deleted his account.
- Responding to the criticism of Donilon and Ricchetti, a Biden aide told Axios: “There are a wide range of advisers [Biden] consulted about the campaign, who agreed on the merits of running — like the party did after the best midterm wins for a new president in over 60 years … No one ‘has’ the president do anything.”
A former Biden staffer dismissed the Harris team’s criticisms as making excuses for the vice president’s failures: “How did you spend $1 billion and not win? What the f***?”
- Another person involved in Harris’ campaign felt deceived by the happy-talk from leadership about how it was a margin-of-error race when Trump won decisively. “People are depressed and frustrated about the overconfident leadership of the campaign,” they said.
- Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates told Axios: “Anyone criticizing the vice president’s campaign is at odds with President Biden.”
Another person familiar with the dynamics said that some on Biden’s team resent Harris for not using the president more during the campaign, even though he is unpopular and prone to gaffes.
- “The Harris team benched [Biden] and then they lost, so now the people who represent Biden are saying, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have benched him,’ ” they said.
Others reflected on what they saw as the Biden administration’s policy failures on the economy, inflation and the border.
- One former Biden-Harris official said it was more a governing problem than a communications problem: “It’s very clear we got it wrong on economic policy. People feel squeezed and when they do, they pick change. Our policy position and execution wasn’t palpable to voters.”
- Another former Biden administration official cited a range of frustrations: “The party was lied to about our candidate, and the leadership who lied were the same ones who never bothered to actually listen to voters and understand what was appealing to them about Trump — or why the Biden economy wasn’t working for them even if it looked good on paper.”
- Harris’ campaign decline to comment.
The intrigue: Harris’ campaign was undermined by internal confusion and a lack of clear decision-making hierarchy.
- Getting something through its approval process was like a Rubik’s cube, one person involved in the campaign said.
