White House at Each Other’s Throats Over Border — With Biden Reaming Aides and Top Official Calling HHS Sec. ‘B*tch-A**’: Report
AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough
A new report reveals internal turmoil at the White House over the administration’s handling of the border — with President Joe Biden privately chewing out aides and one top official calling a cabinet official “bitch-ass.”
In a piece for Axios titled “How Biden botched the border,” reporters Alex Thompson and Stef W. Kight revealed the president exploded during a meeting on board Air Force One in January 2023, en route to tour the southern border.
From the report:
“The president lit into his team, which included then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall and other immigration officials. He demanded obscure immigration data points — and vented when his staff didn’t have them handy.
“Why it matters: The previously unreported meeting, recounted to Axios by three people familiar with the events, is emblematic of the Biden administration’s struggle with the border crisis during the past three years — infighting, blame-shifting and indecision.”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates disputed the reporting in a statement to Axios — calling the meeting “productive” and adding, “multiple firsthand participants of the meeting refute this description of the tone and outcome” of a conversation on “the specifics of this complex issue.”
But in the Axios report, former Biden officials were unsparing in their criticism. The piece quotes an unnamed ex-Biden senior official going after Vice President Kamala Harris.
“She’s been at best ineffective, and at worst sporadically engaged and not seeing it was her responsibility,” the official said. “It’s an opportunity for her, and she didn’t fill the breach.”
And top officials were reportedly at each other’s throats. Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice, in particular, was furious at Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for “his reluctance to find more space in child migrant shelters.”
“Rice referred to Becerra as a ‘bitch-ass’ and privately called him an ‘idiot,'” the report said.
Read the full report here.
