Kamala Harris branded CNN’s Anderson Cooper a ‘motherf***er’ after a tense interview, a new book has revealed.
The former vice president had been grilled by the anchor over Joe Biden’s debate performance against Donald Trump last year.
Cooper had questioned her over whether the then president should step aside over his horrific showing and questioned his cognitive abilities.
Directly afterwards, Harris told her aides: ‘This motherf***er doesn’t treat me like the damn Vice President of the United States.’
That’s according to Anderson’s CNN colleague Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson in their new book ‘Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.’
Harris went on the defense for Biden in the interview with Cooper, who had spoke of Democrats feeling a sense of panic over Biden’s ‘train wreck’ of a performance.
She shot back at him, saying: ‘Donald Trump lied over and over again as he is want to do’, describing Biden as having a slow start to the debate.
Cooper said: ‘You debated against then Vice President Biden four years ago, and he was a very different person four years – that’s certainly true is it not?’
Cooper had questioned the then VP over whether Biden should step aside over his horrific performance against Trump and questioned his cognitive abilities
Harris and Cooper are seen here as he moderated a CNN Town Hall in Pennsylvania after Harris became the Democratic nominee
After a deep sigh, Harris added: ‘Anderson the point has to be performance in terms of what a president does.
‘I got the point you are making about a one and a half hour debate tonight, I’m talking about three and a half years of performance that has been historic.’
According to Tapper’s book some in Biden’s circle cheered on Harris’s defense of the president, and that she was clearly angry following the sit down with Cooper.
The book has also shown a light on Biden’s prep for the debate, claiming he was ‘rusty’ in the lead up to it.
It also said that Biden had napped the entire first day of his prep, after specifically setting time aside to practice at Camp David last June.
Of the mock debates at the Maryland retreat, Tapper and Thompson said: ‘Biden’s performance ranged from bad to passable.
‘His voice was hard to hear, his delivery was halting, and his answers were all over the place.
‘Advisers also told him his mouth was agape when he wasn’t speaking and urged him to close it.
‘His voice got raspier as the week went on, to the point that aides couldn’t hear him during mock sessions. Biden kept asking for more cough drops.’
Biden listens as Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during their debate in Atlanta, Georgia on June 27, 2024
President Biden eventually stood down his reelection campaign following the debate performance after intense backlash.
Tapper has been on the end of sharp criticism for the contents of the new book, critics argue that he himself was involved in the cover-up he now is dissecting.
In an interview with Megyn Kelly, Tapper accepted that he missed the mark during Biden’s term, but has offered a glimpse into his horror while moderating the debate.
‘That front row seat was really disturbing,’ he said, later describing Biden’s performance as an act of ‘self-immolation.’
Tapper revealed he and fellow moderator Dana Bash had iPads which they used to communicate with their production team throughout the debate.
Early on, Tapper sent a message to his crew backstage. He didn’t know which staff were working, so he ‘tried to keep it clean.’
‘I wrote “holy smokes,”‘ he told Kelly. ‘I wanted to write “holy f**k.”‘
Around the same time, Bash slid him a piece of paper, with her own message on it.
It read: ‘He just lost the election’, Tapper added: ‘It was – I don’t think this is hyperbole at all – the worst debate in the history of presidential debates going back to 1960.’
Biden revealed this month he has been diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer, sparking a wave of new concerns about his health in the White House.
