OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Vice President Kamala Harris raised eyebrows recently when she made a bizarre comment about whether President Joe Biden will run for re-election in 2024.
Harris was asked by reporters about South Carolina Democrat Rep. Jim Clyburn endorsing her potential candidacy in 2024 if Biden bows out and she decides to run for president.
“Joe Biden is running for reelection, and I will be his ticket mate. Full stop. That’s it,” Harris said.
But then Harris issued another statement to “clarify” her original comments about Biden’s 2024 plans.
When she was asked again if Biden was running, Harris responded: “The president intends to run, and if he does, I will be his ticket mate. We will run together.”
“If he does” is a far stretch from Harris saying Biden is definitively running.
A CNN report alleged that White House insiders are painting a picture of total chaos and discontent between Biden and Harris.
“That chatter has already reached top levels of the Biden orbit, according to one person who’s heard it,” CNN reported.
CNN’s report claims Biden’s allies in the administration have avoided dealing with Harris because they see “entrenched dysfunction and lack of focus” from her.
In addition to that, two explosive rumors hit the White House last month: will President Joe Biden run for re-election and if he does, will he stick with Vice President Kamala Harris.
The first issue came when CNN’s Don Lemon flat-out asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre if President Joe Biden has the “stamina, physically and mentally” to run for a second term in 2024.
Currently, Biden is 79 years old. He would be 82 years old on Inauguration Day 2025 if he were to run again and win.
“Don! You’re asking me this question! Oh my gosh, he’s the president of the United States! You know, he — I can’t even keep up with him,” Jean-Pierre declared. “We just got back from New Mexico. We just got back from California. Uh, that is — I, I, that is — that is not a question that we should be even asking. Just look at the work that he does. Just look at how he’s delivering for the American public.”
DON LEMON: "Does the president has the stamina, physically and mentally, do you think to continue on even after 2024?"
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: "That is not a question that we should be even asking" pic.twitter.com/dUfQil9qKp
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 14, 2022
Lemon even asking the question speaks volumes about just how bad things have gotten under Biden.
Prior to that, the New York Times published an explosive piece detailing how Democrats are mulling replacing Biden at the top of the ticket in 2024.
“Many Democratic lawmakers and party officials are venting their frustrations with President Biden’s struggle to advance the bulk of his agenda, doubting his ability to rescue the party from a predicted midterm trouncing and increasingly viewing him as an anchor that should be cut loose in 2024,” the NYT reported.
The NYT report cited “nearly 50 Democratic officials” and “disappointed voters” who are “alarmed about Republicans’ rising strength and extraordinarily pessimistic about an immediate path forward” under the Biden administration.
Things are not looking good for Harris, either.
In a scathing piece from New York Magazine, titled, “There Has to Be a Backup Plan. There’s a Backup Plan, Right? Inside the 2024 soul-searching that’s happening in every corner of the Democratic Party,” author Gabriel Debenedetti discusses how Democrats are facing a reckoning.
Debenedetti notes how there seems to be a major divide between Biden and his allies on one side and Harris and her loyalists on the other.
With Trumpism re-ascendant, ambivalence about Biden’s age and political standing is fueling skepticism just as the image of his understudy, Vice-President Kamala Harris, dips even further than his. The most recent analysis from the Los Angeles Times has her net approval rating at negative 11. The result is a bizarre disconnect within the Democratic Party, with two factions talking past each other.
One group consists of Biden and his loyalists, who are convinced that while the ticket’s numbers are undeniably bleak, they’re historically unsurprising for a president and VP facing their first midterm and will surely bounce back. The second group comprises a broad swath of the Democratic elite and rank and file alike, who suspect that vectors of age, succession, and strategy have created a dynamic with no obvious parallel in recent history.