New: The good vibes Harris's campaign are masking tensions among competing factions, as Harris loyalists and Obama alumni are grafted onto Biden's campaign.
“The entanglement of these different entities has led to many people feeling a real lack of role clarity," one person involved in the campaign told Axios.
The result is a large and at times unwieldy team, with internal worries about cohesiveness when inevitable stumbles arise, 6 people involved in the campaign tell Axios.
Biden's campaign was insular, with a few long-serving aides making big decisions.
The Harris campaign has become a diffuse "Frankenstein" team with multiple power centers of ppl close to Harris, some on the Biden team, and the new Obama folks.
Another person involved with the campaign said there isn't "as much tension at the very, very top.”
The dynamic there is more about figuring out “Who is the first among equals with the vice president?"
Still there is confusion about who's in charge happening more often "two or three rungs down”
People involved in the campaign are hoping the short timetable before Election Day — now 68 days — won't allow tensions to fester.
"It's just a mad dash," said one person involved in the campaign. "Things are colliding occasionally, but it's not malicious."
The clunky organization will be fine as long as the team believes it can win, another said.
Part of the tension: Some on Biden's team thought many top Obama aides had been second-guessing their decisions for months — and were part of the effort to push the president to end his run for re-election.
Harris brought on prominent election lawyer Marc Elias. Biden's camp had split with Elias last year over concerns about his strategy.
Elias, now helping with the Democrats' recount strategy, is close to former Attorney General Eric Holder who vetted Harris’s Vp’s and served with Tony West, Harris’s brother in law.
@HansNichols and my story about the Elias-Biden split last summer: axios.com/2023/07/31/bid…
Some Biden aides are also frustrated by having to defend Harris for her past support of progressive issues such as Medicare for All and banning fracking.
Harris's and other Democrats' support for those issues in the 2020 campaign was partly why Biden won the nomination and beat Trump, they argue.
They see some vindication for Biden as Harris is now changing positions on such issues.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
New: the legal group co-founded by Stephen Miller has continued filing lawsuits and legal complaints—including against the Trump administration—as part of his larger campaign to make DEI programs illegal.
In early Feb, America First Legal petitioned the Education dept to investigate 5 school districts in VA for allegedly not complying with Title IX
Less than 2 weeks later, the Civil Rights office of the dept announced it was opening an investigation into the districts.
Late last month, the group petitioned the Labor Department to investigate whether outside federal contractors were in compliance with Trump's executive order banning federal contractors and subcontractors from "allowing or encouraging ... workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin."
They singled out contractors such as Lyft, Meta, Paramount, Twilio and others.
Operatives in both parties instantly saw it as a flashback to Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark.
The Trump team has already started to fundraise off it, sending out an email with the subject line: "You are not garbage! I love you! You are the best our nation has to offer."
Biden's comments are the latest example of why Kamala Harris' team has been avoiding campaigning with him.
Biden is both unpopular and undisciplined, Harris aides told Axios.
After Slotkin retreats from EV’s in a new ad this week, Harris told people in Michigan yesterday: "Contrary to what my opponent is suggesting, I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.”
Some more context in this piece.
In 2019, Harris backed a plan requiring all automakers to only make EV’s and hydrogen cars by 2035.
New: In an Aug. 28 letter obtained by Axios, the WH News Photographers Association said Harris' team was engaging in an "unprecedented reduction in access.”
The VP’s team didn’t respond until last night after we asked about the letter
Jessica Koscielniak, the president of the WHNPA, wrote to Harris' top aides last month protesting that "the four independent news photographer seats have been downgraded to one."
She proposed either adding a "chaser plane" for additional media or the WHCA reorganizing who gets a seat.
In their response last night, the VP’s office said they explored adding more seats on Air Force Two and a chase plane and "learned both suggestions are not viable given available resources, including personnel and aircraft."
The full VP response below:
Veteran WH news photographer Doug Mills, speaking in his personal capacity, told Axios that "the current situation puts the still photographers at a distinct disadvantage on every trip."
He added: "It's essential to us for people to understand the importance of having a full photographer pool. Every photographer sees each event differently. "
As Senator, Harris co-sponsored the Zero-Emissions Act in 2019, which would require by 2040 that 100% of new passenger vehicle sales in the U.S. release no greenhouse gases (only EV’s and hydrogen cars fit that criteria).
During her 2020 campaign, she advocated for an “accelerated model” of the bill and proposed requiring "50% of all new passenger vehicles sold are zero-emission by 2030, and 100% are zero-emission by 2035."
This was what Harris proposed on her 2020 website.
"we will ensure that 50 percent of all new passenger vehicles sold are zero-emission by 2030, and 100 percent are zero-emission by 2035. This will require a new and improved “cash for clunkers” program with incentives for cars to be replaced with zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) manufactured in America" web.archive.org/web/2019120323…