Vice President Kamala Harris’s repeated, querulous assertion Joe Biden is president on Comedy Central’s “Tha God’s Honest Truth” during a tense exchange with host Charlamagne tha God earlier this month is just what Democrats want, a report Saturday claimed.
Charlamagne asked, “Who is the real president of this country? Is it Joe Manchin or Joe Biden?” towards the end of the 20 minute interview, as Breitbart News reported.
Harris said, “Come on, Charlamagne, come on. It’s Joe Biden—”
Charlamagne replied, “I can’t tell sometimes.”
Harris shot back, “No, no, no, no, no. It’s Joe Biden. It’s Joe Biden, and don’t start talking like a Republican about asking whether or not he’s president. It’s Joe Biden—” before addressing more reasons he is the leader of the country.
That hectoring, argumentative tone is just what Democrats want to see in Harris, The Hill reports.
“That’s the Kamala Harris I know the base has been dying to see,” a Democratic strategist close to the White House said of the episode with Charlamagne. “If she’s indeed the future of the party and a potential president, they shouldn’t be stripping her of personality.”
Democratic strategist Joel Payne agreed Harris is reshaping her role with a more combative approach.
He told The Hill the vice president now has “an opportunity to refresh and focus more on substance to help illustrate the type of governing partner she has been and can be for the president,” over the Christmas break.
“That should allow outside validators to vouch for her and help reorient the public to what type of a president she would be if that opportunity were to come to pass in the future,” Payne added.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain is another who taken to praising the vice president, using Twitter to sing her praises:
Despite the optimism and hope exhibited by her own Democrat supporters, Harris is struggling to break through outside the D.C. bubble, even turning to twice-failed presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton seeking the best way to reverse diving approval ratings while at the same navigating the travails of public life.
Harris “has turned to powerful confidantes, including Clinton, to help plot a path forward,” the New York Times reported in a piece published Saturday. She hosted Clinton in her West Wing office in November, the paper further outlined.
Harris remains one of the least popular holders of her office in history.
As Breitbart News reported earlier this month, Harris has addressed her failure to engage the public, lamenting “there is nothing about this job that is supposed to be easy.”
“If something is coming to me, it’s because it needs to be addressed and because, by definition, it’s not going to be easy. If it was easy, it would have been handled before it comes to me,” the 57-year-old former California senator added.
Despite the sum total of disaffection and disapproval Harris drives with the wider public, Joel Payne told The Till the interview with Charlamagne tha God was a Rorschach test.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris laughs while shopping for pots and pans at E Dehillerin Cookware shop in Paris, on November 13, 2021. (SARAHBETH MANEY/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The Democratic strategist remains convinced that’s the tone the public should see from Harris going forward.
“It would stop the chatter about whether she’s ready for prime time or not,” he said.