POLITICO: When Anna Wintour pissed off Kamala
By ALEX THOMPSON and MAX TANI
Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice.
Tensions between Vice President KAMALA HARRIS and President JOE BIDEN and their teams began before inauguration and involved not just complicated issues like mass migration on the southern border but cover photos of glossy magazines.
In the two weeks before Inauguration Day, Harris dispatched aides to address the upcoming issue of Vogue, according to an exclusive excerpt of the upcoming book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future” by The New York Times reporters JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEXANDER BURNS.
The leaked cover photo, which featured Harris in Converse and skinny pants, was “an approachable but less than grand depiction of the incoming vice president,” the reporters wrote. But Harris had been expecting a different photo, one that was ultimately made the “digital cover.” Vogue also eventually sold a limited-edition issue with the other photo.
“Harris was wounded. She felt belittled by the magazine, asking aides: Would Vogue depict another world leader this way?” the duo reported.
Harris’ incoming press secretary SYMONE SANDERS, who declined to comment, reached Vogue editor ANNA WINTOUR to convey Harris’ frustration. Wintour, who did not respond to a request for comment, protested that she had chosen the picture personally because it made Harris “relatable,” according to Martin and Burns.