Dem Strategist Says Resentful Biden Kneecapping Harris as ‘Power Move’ After He Was Forced Out of Race in ‘Coup’
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
A Democratic Party strategist said he believes President Joe Biden is undermining Vice President Kamala Harris as he remains bitter about being forced out of the race in July.
New York-based strategist Hank Sheinkopf spoke to The New York Post for a piece published Saturday in which numerous people spoke on the record to claim the president is “sabotaging” Harris’s November chances.
Sheinkopf told the post that in his estimation, Biden has been lukewarm on Harris’s run for the White House as both a “power move” and to “ensure that people understand who the boss still is.”
Added Sheinkopf, “It would be absolutely ridiculous to assume that he has no resentment over how he was treated or how, frankly, he was forced out in what some would describe as a coup.”
Biden administration spokesman Andrew Bates disagreed that his boss had a vendetta to score against Harris. Bates noted Biden was quick to endorse his vice president in July and that he made his support “clear.”
Meanwhile, Jason Meister – an adviser for Donald Trump – repeated a claim from the former president that Biden holds a grudge against Harris.
“Biden is intentionally enacting revenge on Kamala for knifing him in the back,” Meister told the Post. “He never liked her. The happiest he’s looked in four years was when he put a red [Trump 2024] hat on after speaking with Shanksville, [Pa.] firefighters [last month] on 9/11. He should just come out and endorse Trump.”
Trump has gone as far on multiple occasions to claim Biden “hates” his vice president. NBC News reported of a Trump rally in Scranton earlier this week:
While the economy was the ostensible theme of the rally, Trump went on an array of tangents. He complained about polls that show him trailing Harris — calling them “fake” and insisting he’s ahead — and claimed without evidence that Democrats plan to “cheat like hell.”
Trump accused Harris of waging a “coup” to push Biden out of the race, musing that he thinks Biden now “hates her almost as much as he hates me.” He predicted there would be “an explosion” between Biden and Harris before Election Day on Nov. 5.
