The White House made a huge mistake with Vice President Kamala Harris as Democrats scramble to find an alternative to President Joe Biden following his dismal debate performance.
Several Democrats, including Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina and Sen. Laphonza Butler of California, have suggested the 59-year-old vice president is best suited to take on Trump in the general election if Biden agrees to step down.
Tim Ryan, a former Ohio congressman, has even called on the 81-year-old commander in chief to “ripper off the band-aid” and promote Harris immediately.
But in the four years since Biden took office, his administration has done little to promote Harris and properly prepare her to lead the United States. according to The Atlantic.
That failure comes despite the president’s promise to usher in a new generation of Democratic leaders.
Biden administration reportedly has failed to prepare Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the nation
Biden had promised in 2020 to step aside to make way for a younger Democrat, and touted his then-running mate as “a courageous fighter for the underprivileged and one of the country’s finest public servants.”
When campaigning for president in March 2020, Biden endorsed then-Senator Harris, as well as Sen. Cory Booker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, touting all three as the next generation of Democrats.
“Look, I see myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” he said.
“There is a whole generation of leaders who supported me. They are the future of this country.”
He reiterated that message a few months later at an online fundraiser, saying: “I consider myself a transitional candidate.
“You have to have more people on the bench who are ready to step in. ‘Put me in the coaching job, I’m ready to play,'” Biden said at the time. according to the New York Times.
‘Well, there are a lot of people willing to play, women and men.’
Then, when he announced Harris as his running mate in August 2020, Biden touted the then-senator as “a fearless fighter for the underprivileged and one of the country’s finest public servants.”
Biden’s team then reportedly refused to answer questions about whether Harris was prepared to lead the country.
But Biden’s team declined to answer questions about whether Harris was prepared to take over the presidency — not because they had doubts about her ability to lead the country, but because they resented the implication that there might come a time when she would have to, the Atlantic reports.
Any questions on the topic were dismissed as a distraction based on a Republican argument that a vote for Biden was actually a vote for a female president, Harris.
Even after taking office, Biden’s team still seemed to keep Harris at arm’s length.
Administration officials have since apparently admitted that they should have done more to promote Harris during Biden’s first term.
One official said it’s “always difficult” to promote a vice president, despite Biden’s close relationship with former President Barack Obama.
When former chief of staff Ron Klain was asked last year whether the administration had done enough to portray her as a governing partner, Klain simply said that “it’s always difficult” to promote the vice president, even though Biden himself insisted on being involved in the conversations when he served as vice president under former President Obama.
“Obviously, I wish, you know, that more could always be done and more should be done,” he told The Atlantic.
His successor, Jeff Zients, also seemed to have difficulty answering the question.
Asked if he could recall a time when the president “relied notably on Harris for guidance.”
Zients said Harris was instrumental in making “equity” part of the administration’s COVID response, but could not recall another example.
Early in Biden’s first term, Harris was tapped to lead the administration’s immigration response.
Some Democrats now argue that the Biden administration has doomed any hopes of a Harris presidency.
Her first year in office was marred by mass resignations of her staff, and she had been tapped from the start to lead the administration’s approach to determining the root causes of illegal immigration and stemming the flow of migrants crossing the southern border.
“They send her through immigration, but then they’re not willing to do anything about it,” Tim Ryan told The Atlantic.
As a result, he said, Democrats have “completely lost” the issue to Republicans.
“And you certainly can’t blame her for that.”
Still, Harris has gained some popularity among abortion activists after traveling around the country speaking on the issue in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections.
Since Biden’s appearance on the CNN debate on June 27, Harris has also fiercely defended the president, seeking to assuage donor concerns about the viability of his campaign.
“She’s been there, on the front lines of the campaign since it launched,” a former adviser told The Atlantic.
“He got more attention and will continue to get more attention because of what happened with his performance.”
Biden has faced calls to drop out of the presidential race since his disastrous performance in the CNN debate on June 27.
The president repeatedly fell silent mid-sentence during the debate and gaped as Trump spoke.
Once finished, Biden was seen standing around his podium before First Lady Jill Biden finally escorted him off the stage.
The president later blamed “exhaustion” and being “sick” for his debate performance, even claiming that he had to take a COVID test before the debate.
But in the wake of the developments, at least 10 Democrats called on Biden to drop out of the race, with former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro writing Tuesday: “President Biden should make good on his promise to be a bridge to the next generation of leaders and allow a stronger Democratic candidate to avoid a disastrous second Trump term.
“Time is running out” he wrote.
Since then, many Democrats have suggested that Harris should be the Democratic nominee.
Many Democrats, who held a crisis call Sunday afternoon, now seem to agree that Harris should be that “stronger Democratic candidate.”
Republicans have even begun preparing for the possibility of a Harris-Trump showdown in November.
The Republican House campaign arm launched a digital ad Wednesday focused on the vice president as Republicans look to hold on to the House and expand their slim majority this fall.
The ad accuses Harris of being an “enabler in chief” with clips of her praising Biden.
He also accuses the vice president of being the “architect of the border crisis” as the administration’s top official charged with addressing the border.
The digital ad ends with “Vote Republican. Stop Kamala.”
Biden has so far refused to drop out of the presidential race. His first wife, First Lady Jill Biden, is believed to be encouraging him to stay.
But Biden has so far refused to step down as the Democratic candidate.
“I’m still in the race,” he insisted in an impassioned speech in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday.
His wife, First Lady Jill Biden, is believed to be the one encouraging him to stay in the race; a source close to the First Family says she “has the most influence” over her husband.
However, Anthony Fowler, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, has suggested that the president’s team may not think there is a viable alternative to defeating former President Donald Trump in the general election.
“If Biden was confident in Kamala’s ability to win, he might have stepped aside to support her,” Fowler said. he explained to Axios.
He added: ‘If voters believed Joe Biden was the best person for the job, and were excited to vote for him, they would still be happy to vote for him regardless of whether he had said in 2020 that he would likely be a one-term president or that he would just be a short-term bridge.
“Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of voters excited to vote for Biden right now.”