When former Vice President Kamala Harris first heard about how poorly Joe Biden's team was responding to excerpts of her upcoming book, she essentially shrugged, I'm told. She wasn't surprised. The response came after years of interactions with Biden staffers who her team thought were undercutting her.
That was obvious even from the outside. As soon as the first excerpt of the book, "107 Days," was published in The Atlantic, I received a barrage of texts and emails from former Biden White House aides attacking what she had supposedly said about them — though many of them weren't exactly close enough to the action to be on Harris' mind.
Losing a presidential race is always hard for both the nominee and the party they represent. Even in the best of times, there will be heated debate among strategists, finger-pointing from campaign insiders and disappointment from voters.
But the 2024 race was guaranteed to lead to bad blood. For starters, you had the incumbent president, the only person to have defeated Donald Trump, running for re-election until it was obvious that his advanced age was too big of a drawback, then handing it off to a younger and more vigorous successor who lost anyway.
That left the Biden team feeling like Harris had fumbled the ball, while the Harris team felt they'd been thrown a bad pass. In a sense, both are right.
This is a preview of Eugene Daniels' latest column. Read the full column here. For more thought-provoking insights from Eugene Daniels, watch "The Weekend" every Saturday and Sunday from 7 to 10 a.m. ET on MSNBC.
