Harris Campaign Allows Joe Biden, Fresh off the Beach, to Reemerge as Top Surrogate

President Joe Biden walks with Vice President Kamala Harris along the West Colonnade of th
Adam Schultz/White House via Flickr
Wendell Husebø

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign will allow President Joe Biden to become a top surrogate for her White House bid.

Biden’s reemergence as a campaign surrogate could be a liability for the Harris campaign. Biden, who appears to be the target of damaging leaks after stepping aside as his party’s nominee, is 81 years old and prone to gaffes, with a sour political track record.

Only 41 percent approve of Biden’s job performance, while 54 percent disapprove, according to RealClearPolitic’s polling average as of Septmber 2.

Biden spent much of the last two weeks on a beach vacation following his speech at the DNC. Republicans questioned who was running the country during his extended absence from the White House.

“He’s actually going to participate in the campaign and lay out what the administration has done. That’s one of the key things that needs to be emphasized,” former Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman, a close friend and longtime adviser of Biden’s, told CNN. “It’s all hands on deck.”

CNN reported on the Harris campaign’s decision to bring Biden into the campaign, along with “how the president can be utilized on the fundraising circuit in the fall”:

Biden told reporters he’s looking forward to hitting the campaign trail after a two-week vacation in California and Delaware. His advisers have spent the past few weeks sketching out what his fall plans will entail on the campaign trail as he looks to burnish his legacy, sources familiar with the situation said.

The president is emerging with an initial roadmap running through Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan over the next five days, visiting the critical “blue wall” states where he narrowly beat former President Donald Trump in 2020. It will include a mix of campaign and official events to promote popular agenda items, offering a blueprint for how he’ll be deployed in the coming months.

…

There is close coordination between the West Wing, the vice president’s office and the campaign on plans to get Biden on the road where most helpful, a source familiar with the matter said. Exactly where and how often he is deployed could evolve as the race progresses, sources said, as Harris’ campaign faces a truncated period to make its case to voters.

Biden’s usefulness to the swamp is coming to an end, it appears, as reports surface of the Washington, DC, establishment pushing Biden out.

Former President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), along with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), and Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), had an outsized role in pushing Biden out, the New York Times reported Thursday, based on multiple interviews with those with firsthand knowledge of the events.

The senators’ participation was previously unreported.

“What happened,” Biden told CBS News in August, “was a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races. And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic.”

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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