Biden Insider Takes on Bombshell Kamala Harris Claims
In a new interview, former senior Biden aide Andrew Bates commented on claims made by former Vice President Kamala Harris in excerpts released from her upcoming book.
VP Harris stunned the political media world with excerpts from the forthcoming campaign tome 107 Days, in which she offers candid criticism of then-President Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection and his staff’s treatment of her.
In a Substack interview this week, Bates said he hadn’t read “much” from the book, but said he hadn’t heard the type of chatter she described around the decision to run again.
On the VP’s complaint that she wasn’t set up to succeed, Bates said that wasn’t his experience, as he and his press shop “got her back” whenever there were attacks:
TOMMY CHRISTOPHER: She said she felt like she wasn’t set up to succeed and that wasn’t the impression I got when I was reporting. I know that there were probably some people on the inner circle that were sort of, I don’t know, into the drama.
But my experience with the press shop was that they were very much behind the vice president and, you know, the president– seemed like a genuinely close relationship, considered her a partner. So were you surprised at all by what she said about being set up for success or failure?
ANDREW BATES: Your read is consistent with my experience. I spent a lot of time working with her team to get her back, to talk about her successes, to defend her from negative coverage that we thought was unfair, and I’m proud that I did that. And that was something that I saw across from my colleagues.
TOMMY CHRISTOPHER: Yeah, you know, uh, I found that it’s especially, you know, it’s not always easy to get responses from the white house. You got the busy group, but I always try anytime I, anytime I had stuff, the questions about the vice president, anytime I needed a response and tell you guys were always, uh not just you, but everybody there wouldn’t pitch him with like background and quotes, whatever I needed.
I kind of feel like that might have been a function of a lack of demand, you know, like there weren’t a lot of reporters interested in reporting on the vice president and interested in crediting things. What do you think about that?
ANDREW BATES: That I don’t know. I appreciate what you said. And I, as you know, a lot of the work that I did was about responding to different kinds of criticism of people who are on the team, whether that was the president, the vice president or others, and also proactively making contrasts with others.
Watch above via the Tommy Christopher Substack interview series.
