As much as they love having Joe Biden as President, the ladies of The View have more respect and admiration for Vice President Kamala Harris. This was apparent on Monday as they talked with New York Times writers Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns about their book This Will Not Pass, filled with palace intrigue. Aside from the anti-Trump portions, the cast zeroed in on the claims that Harris felt disrespected by Biden’s West Wing staff not standing when she entered a room.
After a segment with Martin and Burns about former President Trump and Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), they came back from a commercial to cover this supposed disrespect. Martin noted that Harris doesn’t have the experience in the Senate compared to Biden and has no useful expertise, thus it’s “created tensions with the West Wing.”
Amplifying the tensions are Harris’s insecurities and complaints that Biden’s staff isn’t standing up when she enters a room, as Martin explained:
We have a scene in the book in which she's feeling disrespected because she sees staffers in the West Wing when she walks into the room, who are not standing for her, and they always stand for President Biden when he walks into the room. And she had her chief of staff telephone somebody in the West Wing and say, ‘She's noticed this. Please tell the staff. When the VP walks into the room, they are to stand.’
Burns chimed in to suggest there was an “unmistakable context of identity for this too” since the “Biden inner circle is overwhelmingly white,” “largely male,” and “have largely been with Biden for a very, very long time.”
“Well, protocol is protocol. So, they need to follow that,” huffed co-host Sunny Hostin despite the fact it’s unclear what the actual protocol is.
The solution proposed by co-host Whoopi Goldberg was to drag everyone into “a giant meeting” and lecture everyone. “Because we know that everybody has little microaggressions that they may not be aware that they're putting out there,” she said.
And if they still wouldn’t worship Harris, then they should be fired. “So let's have this big meeting and if I see you do it again, you're out,” she declared.
In response, Martin noted that Biden already did something like that when it came to leaking to the press:
And Biden, by the way, has laid down the law in that regard. We have a scene in the book where Biden tells people plainly, tells his staff plainly, I should say, ‘if I hear about any of you leaking about the vice president, you're fired.’
At the top of the segment, Martin noted that the backdrop for this tension is the uncertainty of Biden running for a second term. But co-host Joy Behar couldn’t understand why the aging President wouldn’t stick around for another four years, so Martin had to spell it out for her:
BEHAR: Based on what?
MARTIN: Based on the fact that he'll be 82 years old in 2024, and that they’re skeptical that he’s going to serve a full second term or he would want to serve a full second term. Which raises the question, if not Biden, who? And that's what shapes the Kamala Harris news here.
This support for Kamala Harris was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Charmin and Olay. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s The View
May 2, 2022
11:35:53 a.m. EasternSARA HAINES: You write about the relationship between the president and the vice president, and you speak to some of the tension that exists there, and the vice president has felt disrespected at times. So, can you talk about that and how that all could play out in the backdrop of 2024?
JONATHAN MARTIN: Yeah. This is all shaping 2024 because unlike modern and other cases in modern American history, it's not clear if Biden's running for re-election in 2024. We have not had a first-term president, in recent years, where it was uncertain if they were going to be a candidate in the next reelection. And that is the case with Biden. So, that makes this all the more interesting.
ANA NAVARRO: At the White House Correspondents Dinner, he did two jokes twice where he referenced that he was running again.
MARTIN: He wants to run. He's told people that we talked for our book that he plans to run in ’24 for reelection unless there's a health issue intervening. A lot of Democrats don't believe that. They’re convinced he’s not going to run again.
JOY BEHAR: Based on what?
MARTIN: Based on the fact that he'll be 82 years old in 2024, and that they’re skeptical that he’s going to serve a full second term or he would want to serve a full second term. Which raises the question, if not Biden, who? And that's what shapes the Kamala Harris news here.
She'd only been in the senate for a few years and doesn't have the relationships in Washington that Biden has. And so, she was not able to fill the role that Biden did when he was VP on Capitol Hill, and she didn't have the foreign policy experience either. So, I think her challenge has been sort of finding her niche, and it's created tensions with the West Wing.
We have a scene in the book in which she's feeling disrespected because she sees staffers in the West Wing when she walks into the room, who are not standing for her, and they always stand for President Biden when he walks into the room. And she had her chief of staff telephone somebody in the West Wing and say, ‘She's noticed this. Please tell the staff. When the VP walks into the room, they are to stand.’
ALEXANDER BURNS: And let's face it. There is the unmistakable context of identity for this too. Right? That the Biden inner circle is overwhelmingly white. It is largely male, and they have largely been with Biden for a very, very long time. And so, you know, anybody who has been new to the Biden operation, they will tell you right away, it is a tough nut to crack. It is tough to get close to this president, and that's been the case for the Vice President too.
SUNNY HOSTIN: Well, protocol is protocol. So, they need to follow that.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Yeah. Don't you think it would behoove everyone to maybe have a giant meeting and say, ‘let's go over how this actually works so that everybody is clear?’” Because we know that everybody has little microaggressions that they may not be aware --
MARTIN: Right. Right.
GOLDBERG: -- that they're putting out there. So let's have this big meeting and if I see you do it again, you're out.
MARTIN: And Biden, by the way, has laid down the law in that regard. We have a scene in the book where Biden tells people plainly, tells his staff plainly I should say, ‘if I hear about any of you leaking about the vice president, you're fired.’ So that has put a scare into some folks in the West Wing.
BURNS: Though not enough to stop the leaks to –
MARTIN: But not enough to stop the leaks in this book, which is out tomorrow.
(…)
