Biden's 'selfish' intent to 'harm' Kamala Harris crippled her chances of winning presidency, claims book
WASHINGTON, DC: A new tell-all book 'Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House' by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, is dishing out some eyebrow-raising claims.
The book—which hit shelves on April 1—lifts the velvet curtain on the behind-the-scenes chaos of the 2024 presidential election, offering insights on the Democratic Party’s internal civil war, Joe Biden’s quiet cognitive unraveling, and the rocky ride Kamala Harris took from VP to reluctant presidential nominee.
Not-so-united Democrats
Jonathan Allen didn't hold back when he talked about the party’s ugly split.
“I think this divide in the Democratic Party, what I think is important for readers, as we look forward to 2028, you get a sense for what the politicians and political establishment are willing to let you hear as a voter versus what they are really thinking,” he said during an appearance on the 'Breaking Points' podcast.
According to the authors, two Democrat titans—Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama—were clutching their pearls over the thought of Biden or Harris leading the ticket.
“They both thought, particularly Former President Obama, he didn’t think that she could win,” said Parnes. “They saw her as a weaker vice president; they felt like Joe Biden hadn’t championed her enough, that she was ill-prepared to run as president.”
Turns out, Pelosi and Obama were in constant contact, scheming about what to do after Biden’s now-infamous July debate disaster—a performance so bad, donors ghosted him and left his campaign “choked off” and on life support. That’s when the whispers turned into full-on revolt.
But elected Democrats were terrified to say what everyone was thinking. Allen and Parnes reveal lawmakers were “scared” to push Biden out publicly because the party base was already “split.” One wrong move, and they risked “alienating” massive chunks of their voters.
However, the dam cracked slowly. Lawmakers, nudged by Pelosi herself, started calling for Biden to step aside, much to the dismay of the Biden clan.
Joe Biden vs Kamala Harris behind the curtain
Allen and Parnes say Joe Biden was hesitant to endorse Kamala Harris—and it wasn’t policy-related. The man wanted his “victory lap” even as his campaign flatlined.
“One of the things that I think is really illuminating is how much Joe Biden and his team did to try and undermine Kamala Harris in order to keep him above water after that debate,” Allen revealed. “They just kept pushing her down.”
According to Allen, Biden’s aides were threatening donors with the idea of a Harris presidency. “His aides were talking to donors, basically threatening them with Kamala Harris, saying, ‘If you keep pushing him to get out then you’re going to get Kamala Harris, and she’s going to be terrible.’ And some of these people were idiotic enough to send these messages electronically, so the record is preserved, which you can read about in the book," he continued.
"The idea that the Democratic Party was going to somehow skip over Kamala Harris, given all that we know about the Democratic Party, is a non-starter. So, in order to survive, Biden starts knocking Harris internally. He’s trying to harm her internally," Allen added.
Even after Biden exited stage left, he apparently couldn’t stop puppeteering. The book says he pushed his staffers onto her campaign and made sure she stuck to Biden-era policies—even though he was exiting with some of the lowest approval numbers in history, according to a CNN poll.
“A lot of this is [Biden's] ego, too... What’s insane is now that he is out, he is telling [Harris] all the time, ‘No daylight between us,’” Allen said. “You’re not allowed to run your own campaign; you still work for me, basically.”
"He says, ‘No daylight, kid’ to her the day of the debate she has with Trump," he said, as originally reported by Parnes in The Hill. “Amazingly, he’s calling her kid at this point.”
The fallout
In the end, Kamala Harris couldn’t get out from under Joe Biden’s shadow—and that might’ve been what cost her the White House.
“She needed to be able to point to the American people: these are some of the things I’m doing differently or would have done differently," Allen said. “Part of this is Kamala Harris’ loyalty and, in politics, that’s seen by a lot of people as a good character trait that it was difficult to be disloyal to someone who had been loyal to her and, at the same time, if the Democrats wanted to win, she absolutely had to break from him, and he did not want to let her do that. He did not want to let her win without being tied to her."
"The ego and the narcissism and selfishness of that is something that I think for people who really loved Joe Biden in 2020 and thought he was the GOAT now look at him and say he’s more lower case goat," he added.
