First lady Jill Biden reportedly said Vice President Kamala Harris could “go f*** herself” after a 2020 debate between her husband and the former California senator.
“With what he cares about, what he fights for, what he’s committed to, you get up there and call him a racist without basis?” she reportedly said of Harris on a call with donors about a week after the debate. “Go f*** yourself.”
The now-first lady’s comments came after Harris attacked President Joe Biden for speaking fondly of Senate colleagues he had worked with at the start of his career.
“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland. He never called me ‘boy.’ He always called me ‘son,'” the president reminisced in one speech ahead of the debate. “Well, guess what? At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished.”
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But the comments didn’t sit well with his eventual vice president.
“If the people he was talking about with such affection had their way, I would never have been able to be a United States senator,” Harris told reporters following Biden’s remarks.
Harris was then told by her campaign team to “land hard on Biden” at the next debate, something she was reportedly reluctant to do due to her close relationship with the Biden family.
“I’m going to now direct this at Vice President Biden: I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” Harris said at the June 2019 debate.
“But I also believe, and it’s personal — it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me,” she continued.
During the following commercial break, Biden leaned toward fellow Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg to complain about the exchange.
“That was some f***ing bulls***,” Biden reportedly said.
The revelations come from journalist Edward-Isaac Dovere’s book Battle for the Soul, which detail’s Biden’s push for the White House.
“She was searching for some way to condemn him for what he had said and done without attacking the man she liked and respected,” he wrote.
The first lady wasn’t the only one upset about the Harris attack, with Biden lamenting later that he was too polite in his response to Harris.
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“I was probably overly polite in the way I didn’t respond to an attack — ‘You’re not a racist’ — which is a nice thing to say, really reassuring,” Biden said.
