When Kamala Harris took the stage during a Democratic primary debate before the 2020 election and suggested that Joe Biden was racist, his wife Jill’s response was crystal clear.
“Fuck you,” the then-future first lady vented, as she reportedly admitted during a conference call with her supporters.
And the relationship between the two women, which started off badly during the contentious battle for the presidential nomination, has only gone downhill since.
Now, political experts have told DailyMail.com that Democratic aides are struggling to overcome the powerful role that Jill Biden’s hatred of Harris, 59, is playing in Joe’s resistance to passing the mantle to his vice president as pressure mounts for him to step down as presidential candidate and allow another Democrat to take on Donald Trump.
According to a former Democratic operative in Jill’s circle, the women’s long-standing animosity is “100 percent” part of Jill’s resistance to her 81-year-old husband stepping aside.
Because the truth, according to a source who knows the First Couple well, is that Jill’s is now the only voice the 46th president hears.
And as for Jill, 73, the only thing worse than her husband resigning would be Kamala taking over as his replacement.
The relationship between the two women, pictured together in November last year, started off pretty rocky during the contentious 2020 primaries, but has only gone downhill since.
According to a source who knows the couple well, Jill is the only voice the troubled Commander in Chief will listen to.
The bad blood between the First Lady and the Vice President — a feeling so strong that one source described it as “hatred” — dates back to June 2019, when Kamala was running against Biden and condemned him during a televised debate for opposing aspects of mandatory busing for school desegregation.
“Jill holds a grudge,” a Democratic source revealed. “She doesn’t let things go and has never forgiven Kamala for comments that some interpreted as accusations of racism.”
According to a source, that was the reason she never wanted Kamala to be her husband’s number two.
They said: ‘Jill was trying to stop Kamala from joining Biden’s ticket in 2020. She’s hated her ever since the school bus affair.
“But she held her tongue because Biden put himself in a bind by saying he would choose a black woman as his running mate.”
In recent days, Biden has been under almost incessant pressure to resign.
Eighteen House Democrats (three of them after Biden’s “big boy” press conference at the NATO summit) and one senator have called on the president to drop out of the 2024 race for the White House.
On Wednesday, Hollywood star and so-far staunch Biden supporter George Clooney added his voice to the growing clamor for Biden to resign.
The staunch Democrat had been reluctant to speak out against Biden despite growing concerns about the president’s mental fitness for office.
But on Wednesday, Clooney, who co-hosted a fundraiser in June that raised $28 million for Biden’s campaign, wrote a scathing op-ed for the New York Times in which he stated categorically that it was time for Biden to go.
George Clooney visited the White House, where he was honored by the president in 2022. On Wednesday, the New York Times published a scathing op-ed by the actor calling for Biden to resign.
She wrote: “I love Joe Biden. I consider him a friend and I believe in him. I believe in his character. I believe in his morals. Over the last four years he has won many of the battles he has faced.
‘But the one battle he can’t win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe Biden of 2010.
“He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all saw in the debate.”
Former Maryland Attorney General and Democrat Doug Gansler echoed Clooney’s view, telling DailyMail.com on Thursday that he believes Biden will ultimately “do the right thing” and step down.
Gansler, who worked closely with Kamala and Beau Biden during their days as attorneys general of California and Delaware respectively, said he believed it would be “hard to imagine anyone more qualified” than her to become the next president.
She noted that whatever the relationship between Jill and Kamala, “Joe Biden chose her and possibly in some ways was elected president because he chose her.”
He added: “He is the antithesis of Donald Trump. He has been in politics for half a decade and has always done so for the right reasons.”
“In some ways, I think Biden recognizes that he can’t win the election. He couldn’t win it before the debate, and he certainly can’t win it afterward.”
It was Biden’s disastrous performance in the June 27 debate against Trump, coupled with his failure to recover from him in subsequent public appearances (a garbled radio call and an unconvincing interview with ABC), that sparked calls for him to resign.
But according to a well-placed source, while the spotlight of public scrutiny is focused on Biden’s mental acuity, the real power behind the throne is Jill, who wants to stay in the White House almost as much as she wants to keep Harris out of it.
The source told DailyMail.com: “Jill is consumed by the power and prestige of the presidency and what it means to her.”
The source noted that in January 2022 the Marine Corps band performed an original composition titled ‘Fanfare for the First Lady,’ essentially Jill’s personal ‘Salute to the Chief.’
The tune will be played and repeated at official White House functions from her first appearance until she is ready to speak.
All of this is a far cry from the Jill that one former aide recalled as a humble, “regular” person who worked out at the downtown Wilmington YMCA and could never be considered “stuck up.”
According to an informed source, the real power behind the throne is Jill, who wants to stay in the White House almost as much as she wants to keep Kamala out of it.
Jill has taken center stage during the Biden campaign for four more years.
But according to one of them, “It’s not about Kamala, and it’s not about Joe. It’s more about her keeping her status as first lady. She doesn’t want to give it up.”
Another person said Jill is “absolutely adamant about Joe staying, but if he is forced to drop out or decides not to, she would be completely opposed to Kamala replacing him.”
A source close to the matter revealed: “Kamala never runs competent organisations. Every position, every campaign, turns toxic. And Jill is fiercely protective of Joe’s legacy.”
Still, a former Democratic Party insider familiar with the players said they believed Jill’s “pragmatism” might ultimately prevail.
And some say it is precisely her prioritization of her husband’s legacy that might convince Jill to change her position and advise her husband to step aside.
According to an informed source, as more and more party supporters voice their belief that Biden will lose to Trump, even Jill will be forced to admit that the most likely outcome of her husband’s candidacy is that he will “throw his legacy in the trash.”
And not even his hatred of Kamala can overcome that.
