Biden staffer follows and shuts down reporter asking critical voters about Joe's car crash debate performance at Kamala Harris' rally

A deputy communications director for the Biden campaign tried to stop a reporter from interviewing voters when attendees at a political rally with Kamala Harris got negative.

Clio Calvo-Platero, the deputy communications director for the Biden campaign in Nevada, demanded that a New York Times reporter end his conversations with voters at the rally.

'Calvo-Platero followed your pooler as he interviewed voters and recorded the interviews.

Twice she tried to end the interviews when the voters began to criticize Biden,' New York Times reporter Simon J. Levien wrote.

Levien was a member of the vice presidential media pool traveling with Harris on Friday.

He said he spoke with one woman who said Biden's debate performance was 'terrible' and speculated whether a better Democratic candidate could be drafted to take his place.

'We’re at a Joe Biden event, so I’m going to cut you off there, sorry,' Calvo-Platero said, according to Levien.

When another voter started criticizing Biden's 'mental acuity' and suggested that the vice president take his place, Calvo-Platero interrupted again.

'I’m going to stop it here, sorry. If I can, it’s a Biden event. Is that okay?' she said.

Harris appeared unaware of the incident, even as she stumbled over details about a fellow senator. 

Introducing Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) at her rally, Harris commented that Kelly was 'always fighting for the people of Nevada' even though he represented Arizona.  

Levien further detailed his thoughts about the incident with the staffer on social media.

'I asked her after the interviews, why? She said she was just doing her job,' he said.

Calvo-Platero's behavior was uncommon for press 'wranglers' despite their job in deciding the movements of reporters at campaign events.

Press poolers typically have the freedom to interview voters at campaigns, especially when traveling with the vice president, a trip that usually has less logistics.

The Biden team's relationship with the New York Times has been fraught throughout the campaign.

New York Times columnists almost unanimously called for Biden to drop out of the race on Thursday night, telling the president he had done a good job in his first term but that it was time to step aside for another Democrat.

The incident is the latest of a series of incidents between Team Biden and the New York Times as they grow increasingly hostile to each other. 

In January, the Biden campaign met with New York Times journalists off-the-record to criticize their coverage of the president. The team shared with reporters specific spreadsheets of where they felt their coverage fell short of expectations, according to reports, the hubris of which angered political journalists. 

Politico reported in April that the New York Times had become the Biden White House's least favorite news outlet, detailing top staffers griping with the nature of their coverage. 

An incident of a Times reporter revealing a background source led the White House to remove all reporters from their top tier press lists, picking a fight that irritated reporters trying to coordinate coverage of the president. 

Biden staffer TJ Ducklo complained on social media about what he felt was a key failure of the New York Times in April. 

'With limited exceptions, the New York Times continues to fail the American people in covering the most important election for American democracy in 150+ years,' he wrote, sharing images of the paper's stories about concerns about Biden's age and stamina.