Report: Kamala Harris Weighs Further Distancing Herself from Joe Biden as He Touts Their Record

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden atten
AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
Wendell Husebø

Vice President Kamala Harris is weighing whether to further distance herself from President Joe Biden, which would implicitly undermine her record as a “major player” in the administration’s policy decisions, top Harris campaign aides told CNN.

Biden refuses to allow Harris to campaign without escaping her record as his vice president. “We’re singing from the same song sheet. She helped pass all the laws. She’s a major player in everything we’ve done,” Biden told reporters last week in the White House press briefing room.

Harris has been trying to run away from a catch-22: She cannot campaign on policies to fix crime, inflation, and border security without undermining the Biden-Harris administration’s policies, yet she must tout the administration’s policies to validate her record and candidacy.

CNN reported on the political calculations Harris must make with just 29 days left until Election Day:

Top aides to Kamala Harris are heading into the final month of the 2024 presidential race still wrestling with how much distance she can credibly claim from Joe Biden as she looks for more ways to weave in breaks with him on the campaign trail.

…

Harris wants to create space, top aides say, but not too much space. She wants to be loyal — but she also wants to win. She is still planning to lean on Biden, who is flying to Milwaukee on Tuesday for an event trumpeting more projects made possible by administration efforts, to buck up union members or to park himself in battleground Pennsylvania for political stops in the final weeks. But no one on the vice president’s team is upset that Biden is headed to spend a whole week of October overseas on a non-pressing diplomatic trip to Germany and Angola. Some wish he’d go away for longer.

…

Aides say Biden’s decision to show up in the White House briefing room for his first time ever as president was aimed at breaking through to Americans a sense of a good week, in holding off more violence in the Middle East, ending the dockworkers’ strike and another strong monthly jobs report. He reveled in laughing dismissively at now-devoted Trump backer Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for calling the jobs numbers “fake.” Biden aides did not coordinate the surprise appearance with Harris’ campaign, though they did provide a heads-up minutes before.

“He is literally trying to destroy her campaign and it’s just incredible,” CNN pundit Scott Jennings posted on X about the event.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, costs increased by about 20 percent across the board, Russia invaded Ukraine, Hamas and Iran attacked Israel, illegal migrants invaded the southern border, and the nation suffered the deadly Afghan withdrawal.

“I’m obviously not Joe Biden, and you know, I offer a new generation of leadership,” Harris told Brian Taff of Philadelphia’s Action News 6 ABC on September 13. “My approach is about new ideas, new policies that are directed at the current moment. And also, to be very honest with you, my focus is very much in what we need to do over the next ten, twenty years to catch up to the twenty-first century.”

Biden also undermined Harris when he stated several weeks ago that he delegated “everything” as commander in chief to Harris, including foreign and domestic policy.

Those comments surfaced before a report indicated Biden is dismayed that Harris undermined their record since he stepped aside from the presidential race in July, six people familiar with his comments told NBC News.

Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.

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