Joe and Jill Biden Were Wary of Choosing Harris as Running Mate, NYT Reporters’ Upcoming Book Says

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First Lady Jill Biden was frustrated that Kamala Harris emerged as a top choice to be President Joe Biden‘s running mate given her attacks on him during presidential debates, according to a forthcoming book from two New York Times reporters.

Fox News obtained an excerpt of Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns‘ book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future.”

“‘There are millions of people in the United States,’ she began. ‘Why,’ she asked, ‘do we have to choose the one who attacked Joe,'” the pair wrote of Jill Biden’s reaction to Harris becoming a top VP pick.

For instance, Harris attacked Biden’s past working relationship with two segregationist lawmakers and his past opposition to desegregation busing during one debate.

Amid Biden’s vice presidential vetting process, now-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain was an unwavering advocate for Harris, the book states.

“Choosing Harris will show people that you are magnanimous and forgiving,” Klain said to Biden, per Fox News’ excerpt of the book. It will show the country just what a unifying leader you can be.”

An excerpt of the book shared with Axios says that Klain was Harris’ “one vocal and unyielding defender in the West Wing,” but that she dropped the ball in her of handling her Latin American assignment.

“Yes, he acknowledged, it was a politically delicate portfolio, but there had been an opportunity there for her to take full ownership of something, sink into the policy details and produce results,” Klain told Harris, per Axios’ excerpt.

The authors continued: “That, Klain told Harris, was the way to succeed as a vice president.”

According to Martin and Burns, Biden had his own reservations about choosing Harris as a running mater due to her romantic relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who was estranged from his wife at that time and had appointed to Harris to a pair of minor political roles.

Per the excerpt, Biden said that sort of behavior was “the kind of thing that should be off limits.”