As president, Joe Biden has made sure to elevate Vice President Kamala Harris

As president, Joe Biden made sure to promote Vice President Kamala Harris, including in nearly every aspect of his presidency and make her the main character in immigration, which is an important issue. First lady Jill Biden has agreed with second man Doug Imhoff. At least so far, there has been little to no drama or employee fights that have marked many of the relationships between the president and his vice president, including between Barack Obama and Biden in their first year in office.

Even Biden wouldn't believe it a year ago, when he was trying to decide on a candidate. Neither he nor many in his campaign had skipped the first major confrontation with Harris during the Democratic primaries, on the second night of the first debate. Biden came to Miami in late June 2019 as a struggling major and has been criticized for becoming nostalgic for antiquity in the Senate working with apartheid advocates. It seemed that Harris was on the verge of becoming a superstar, although her strength as a filter was more vibrating below the surface than anyone outside of the campaign had imagined. Whoever was attentive remembers what happened next: Harris recorded the most pervasive moment in his career by criticizing Biden for his 1970s position in bus transportation, and linking the attack to the story of a young girl. By the bus, pointing out, "That girl was me."

But the previously untold story of what happened behind the scenes while Harris was preparing for this debate, and Biden and his team responded in turn, explains how close Harris came to not choosing the ticket, and why she liked Biden so much to them. He worked hard to build their relationship in the months that followed.

A week before the first Democratic debate, Harris and his team took refuge in the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, Hillary Clinton's favorite hotel in the United States, because she got the "perfect peach" while staying there during the 1972 conference that nominated George. . McGovern, in a room around a conference table, runs lines. Wonderful Lady Micell was filming scenes of the third season in the lobby, with all the extras dressed in bright 1950s outfits. The choreography was less than that of the Harris crew. Ice Smith, one of Harris' outside advisers, played Bernie Sanders in the mock debates, pulling out every cartoon of an annoying old man he could possibly think of. Ian Sams, his press secretary, played Joe Biden. 

Harris's campaign was looking down at some tough fundraising math: They had bragged about how well it had done in the first quarter of the year after its launch, but attendees could see it was falling short before the launch. Quarterly fundraising deadline June 30. that would come three days after the debate. She had raised $ 12 million, and her plan aimed for that figure to be at least $ 15 million. It was also the practical consideration of political mathematics: there was no path to the nomination of Harris, nor of almost anyone, except Sanders, and perhaps Elizabeth Warren, except through the collapse of Biden. Harris had to make a big splash to increase her political donations. She had to take down Biden for some of that money to matter.

Then, nine days before that first debate, at an expensive fundraiser at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan, Biden had drifted away in his speech to reminisce about his early days in Washington, working with the latest Southern segregation holdouts in the Senate , when “in at least there was some courtesy. We did things. We did not agree on much of anything. We did things. "Like good old James O. Eastland, the rabid segregationist." He never called me 'boy', "Biden said." He always called me 'son.'