Chicago Sun Times: New book: Sen. Duckworth pushed back after Biden rejected her for VP over concerns about Thailand birth
By Lynn Sweet
A new book, making headlines for catching House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in a lie, also details Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s strong pushback to the Biden team rejecting her for vice president on the grounds her Thailand birth to an American father would give rise to distracting birther lies and possibly litigation.
Meanwhile, the book reveals, former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was Obama’s first chief of staff, was lobbying Biden to tap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — who is white — for his running mate.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot “grew so frustrated with the pressure to slash police spending that she told fellow mayors she had threatened to pull the cops entirely out of two aldermanic districts where lawmakers were hectoring her administration with demands to defund the police... . In her telling, the left-wing officials backed down quickly.”
Last year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “who spoke regularly with the former president” told a friend, “Obama is jealous of Biden.”