On Monday, The New York Times reported Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris was distancing herself from President Joe Biden in the waning days before the election.
On Tuesday, the vice president showed why that may have been a wise decision. She spent Wednesday morning cleaning up Biden’s comments disparaging Donald Trump supporters.
“And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’ ” Biden told reporters Tuesday. “Well, let me tell you something. I don’t– I– I don’t know the Puerto Rican that– that I know– or a Puerto Rico, where I’m from– in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people.
“The only ‘garbage’ I see floating out there is his supporters,” he said.
Biden has tried to walk back his comments, which reminded many of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 remarks that half of Trump supporters belong in “a basket of deplorables.” Biden clarified he was describing some of the speakers at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, not Trump voters as a whole. However, some of the vice president’s supporters and critics accuse Biden of deliberately or inadvertently sabotaging her campaign.
“I really lowkey think Biden is trying to sabotage Harris’ campaign. It’s kinda blatant at this point,” one X user wrote.
Noting Biden’s clarification, Harris felt compelled to condemn the president’s verbal gaffe.
“I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” she said Wednesday.
However, Harris was already aware that Biden could be a liability, according to The New York Times.
Officials on Ms. Harris’s campaign think that holding joint events with Mr. Biden would “only hurt her” at the most crucial stage of the race, as one adviser put it. That leaves Mr. Biden, who has expressed an interest in helping stump for her in the coming days, left to arrange his own, campaign-approved events through trade groups and unions.
Mr. Biden and his advisers want it to be known that he is still popular among voters who could help deliver Ms. Harris to victory. As a president who spent nearly a half-century confident in his political prowess, Mr. Biden does not want this final campaign to end with him sitting on the sidelines.
Biden has remained a reliable surrogate to the Democratic nominee but has been largely relegated to smaller campaign events, such as speaking at a union hall. Appearing together, a Harris adviser told The Times, could “only hurt her.”
But Biden apparently wants to hit the trail more in the final week of the presidential campaign, believing he can still appeal to middle-class voters. And he still thinks he could’ve defeated Trump and is shocked the polling shows a neck-and-neck race with the vice president.
One insider compared it to a slow breakup. Harris’ team keeps saying, “We’ll get back to you,” sources told Axios. Meanwhile, Biden’s team, following his lead, has recently taken a more assertive approach.
If she loses to Trump, “it will kill him,” a Biden friend told The Times.
The Associated Press also reports that Biden is anxious to stump for his former running mate “whether they want him or not.”
And it’s not just Harris who has kept Biden at arm’s length. Only a few Senate or House candidates have sought to campaign with him.
Trump made note of that Monday in a post on Truth Social.
“The Democrats have not only greatly demeaned and embarrassed Crooked Joe Biden, but now they’re demanding that he be nowhere near Lyin’ Kamala’s Campaign,” Trump said. “It’s not good enough that they took the Presidency away from him, just like you take candy away from a baby, but now they have to further embarrass him by telling him to, “GET LOST.”
Though Biden wants to remain relevant, NBC News reports he has been “emphatic” that Harris should do “whatever it takes” and is aware she is running as an agent of change.
Harris’ advisers have briefed the president on their candidate’s plans to distance herself from Biden, though she’s struggled to articulate just what she might do differently.
“Every president has to cut their own path,” Biden said recently. “That’s what I did. I was loyal to Barack Obama, but I cut my own path as president. She’s been loyal so far, but she’s gonna cut her own path.”
