There are zero scheduled events for President Joe Biden to campaign with Vice President Kamala Harris before Election Day despite his repeated requests to join his former running mate on the trail, Axios reported Sunday.
Three sources familiar with the growing tension between the Biden White House and Harris’s camp told the outlet the presidential-candidate’s team keeps responding with “We’ll get back to you” when asked about when the current president can campaign for her.
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“Harris’ team believes Biden is a political liability at a crucial time in the campaign — but is reluctant to directly say they don’t want him to campaign for her,” Axios’s Alex Thompson wrote.
Another insider told the publication that the pair seemed to be gradually breaking up, as Harris’s team struggles to balance their respect for Biden’s service with their strategy of distancing themselves from his administration’s legacy.
With Biden’s approval rating sitting at just 39 percent according to FiveThirtyEight, another person familiar with the situation said, “He’s a reminder of the last four years, not the new way forward.”
While a White House official denied that this occurred to Axios, two sources told the outlet that Biden’s team blocked off his schedule for multiple days for campaigning, just for Harris’s team to let those days pass without accepting his willingness to help.
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Tensions have been rising between Biden’s administration and Harris’s campaign since she took his place on the Democrat ticket, with Biden’s senior staffers being labeled as too “in their feelings” to fully support Harris after he was pushed out of the race, inside sources revealed to Axios earlier in October.
According to people familiar with the inner workings of the White House and the campaign, several Biden staffers have switched over to Harris’s team — but some feel like they have been labeled as disloyal for doing so.
Even within Harris’s team, there are reportedly tensions between people who were loyal to her from the beginning and new arrivals from Biden’s camp.
One anonymous Harris campaign staffer told the outlet, “The White House is lacking someone in the room thinking first and foremost about how things would affect the campaign.”