‘Him? Really?’: Becerra’s rise baffles former Biden colleagues

Democrats wanted a frontrunner in California’s gubernatorial race. What they did not envision was Xavier Becerra, whose abrupt rise from afterthought to favorite has left former Biden administration officials — his one-time colleagues — reacting with a mix of incredulity, mockery and resignation.

“It’s like: ‘We need to figure out a candidate who can win!’ But then…him? Really?’” said one former Biden administration official. “It’s amazing.”

In the last several weeks, as former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s flameout catapulted Becerra to the front of a crowded June primary, Biden White House alumni have been marveling at his stroke of luck — and the growing possibility that a Cabinet official who was widely derided and deemed to have been in over his head could soon be the governor of the country’s largest state.

Six former Biden administration officials, all of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly about a former colleague, acknowledged the subject of Becerra’s unlikely rise has come to dominate their group chats and conversations. “It gets the biggest laugh every time we send around a poll,” the first former official said, describing the perception across the administration that the former HHS secretary was ineffective on the Covid response, a migrant health crisis at the border and other matters.

“He ran one of the most consequential agencies in government at the height of the pandemic,” the former official continued. “But he took a backseat to Dr. Fauci and his team, didn’t visibly lead on implementation and had to go through layers to get to POTUS even as a Cabinet member.”

A second former Biden official shared that view, describing Becerra as having been “absent” on Covid responses. So did a third former Biden official, who called Biden’s selection of the former California attorney general, who brought no medical or public health background to the job, “an unfortunate choice.”

Becerra, a fourth former Biden official said, “is very good at being a politician. When he was attorney general, the formula was: you file a lawsuit. When you’re a member of Congress, you help your constituents and you introduce legislation. When people noticed he wasn’t cut out for [the Cabinet] was when there was a crisis — it was clear he didn’t know how to handle that.”

A campaign representative said Becerra was unavailable, referring comment to Ron Klain, who was White House chief of staff for the first two years of Biden’s term and was an early supporter of Becerra’s run for governor. Klain pushed back on the critiques of Becerra.

“I think Secretary Becerra was one of the most effective members of the president’s Cabinet and delivered on the president’s agenda very powerfully and had a record,” Klain said in an interview, arguing the recent public broadsides against Becerra have emanated from “more junior people.”

Beyond the Covid response, which was largely run out of the White House, Becerra seemed slow to activate or at times uninformed about the migrant crisis at the southern border when a rush of detainees overwhelmed federal facilities, according to four of the former officials.

At one point, leaders from some of the largest Latino advocacy organizations went to the White House and asked for Becerra to be included in more meetings. But some in the West Wing, including Biden, were frustrated by his apparent lack of preparation when he was in the room.

“He would go to brief the president and was not prepared at all, almost to the point where it was an embarrassment,” the fourth official said. “Biden would pepper him with questions and he would not be able to answer them.”

Klain said that description did not match his experience, noting he was present for most of Becerra’s meetings with Biden.

“He was always very well prepared and always had a very forceful and insightful point of view,” Klain said.

The chatter had been mostly private until Tuesday evening’s gubernatorial debate aired on CNN — during which one of his rivals, Matt Mahan, said Biden “had to sideline him during Covid because he wasn't delivering results,” a claim Becerra refuted. Afterward during a panel appearance during the network’s post-debate coverage, former Biden Justice Department communications director Xochitl Hinojosa spoke of Becerra as “not effective” while leading HHS.

“A lot of people in the Biden administration are talking about this because they realize that he was not an effective HHS secretary,” Hinojosa said. “And if you ask any Cabinet secretary, they would tell you the same thing.”

Neera Tanden, who served as Biden's Domestic Policy Council chair and White House staff secretary, responded to Hinojosa’s comments Tuesday evening with a post on X.

“I worked directly with Becerra, often daily, and this is bs,” Tanden, now the president of the Center for American Progress, a progressive Washington think tank, wrote in response to a clip of Hinojosa’s remarks. “He delivered on Medicare Drug negotiation, $35 insulin and got health care coverage for 14 million more people. We appreciated that he got big things done.”

Tanden ended with another sharp rejoiner at Hinojosa, who led communications at the Department. of Justice under former Attorney General Merrick Garland. “And the least favorite cabinet secretary? Well that might have been closer to your old neck of the woods,” Tanden wrote.

But Steyer’s campaign seized on Hinojosa’s comments, blasting them out Wednesday on X with a cutting comment: “Xavier Becerra’s colleagues don’t trust him. Why should you?”

Some of the former Biden officials acknowledge that Becerra’s rise, while confounding on one level, makes sense in the context of a lackluster Democratic field and a desire among many voters in a solidly blue state to settle on an acceptable Democratic candidate in an effort to ensure at least one finishes in the primary in the top two — avoiding a Democratic lockout.

“Most people don’t care if he actually wins because he’s better than Steyer, and what other choice is there?” a fifth former official said.

Still, there’s little sugarcoating the resignation and lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy, or anyone else’s.

“There are a lot of administration alumni running for office across the country and most of them have been endorsed by Biden and Harris,” the fourth official noted. “That hasn’t happened for Becerra and it’s obvious, at least to most of us, as to why.”

Jeremy B. White contributed to this report.