SF Gate
New York Times political correspondents Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns continue to promote their upcoming book “This Will Not Pass,” and a new excerpt on Vice President Kamala Harris was provided to Fox News over the weekend. A previous excerpt discussed Harris’ difficult time in the White House, and this new bit is about how Harris came to be selected as President Joe Biden’s running mate. The book reiterates past reporting from other news outlets that First Lady Jill Biden had reservations about Harris because of her attacks on Biden at the first Democratic presidential primary debate in the summer of 2019. According to Martin and Burns, Jill Biden said of Harris: “There are millions of people in the United States,” and “Why do we have to choose the one who attacked Joe?” The new reporting in the book is about the reservations Biden himself had. Those reservations, according to Martin and Burns, relate to Harris’ past romantic relationship with San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. The two dated in the 1990s, and Burns and Martin report that Biden was concerned over the fact that Brown “appointed Harris to a pair of minor political positions” in San Francisco. Biden reportedly described the situation “as the kind of thing that should be off limits” when selecting a running mate. Harris defenders have long characterized criticisms related to her past relationship with Brown as sexist.
