MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – The last few weeks haven’t looked too good for President Joe Biden, but his presidential campaign managed to live another day after he survived a NATO press conference.
That was until the last week of news. From reports of Obama’s increasing pessimism, to top Democrats thinking he could step aside by this weekend, a world where Vice President Kamala Harris is at the top of the Democratic ticket seems all the more likely. As the Biden campaign implodes, top Republicans at the RNC seemed ready to address the possibility, and floated ideas of how to attack Harris on the campaign trail in conversations with the Daily Caller.
“Let’s get to the truth. Let’s start with that. One of the issues with Kamala Harris is that she earned her position expressly based on race and gender. Don’t take my word for it — look at the litany of what Democrats said leading up to her nomination, I think of quoting exact Democratic senators and fellow presidential contenders, numerous of them who said it is our time to put a woman of color on that ticket. That’s their words, not mine,” former presidential candidate and Trump surrogate Vivek Ramaswamy told the Caller.
“So the problem is when somebody earns their position exclusively based on their genetic attributes, whether that was wrong 200 years ago, it’s also wrong today.”
.@reaganreese_ : “Do you have a plan of attack on the campaign trail if VP Harris was to become the Dem nominee?”@VivekGRamaswamy: “The problem is when somebody earns their position exclusively based on their genetic attributes, whether that was wrong 200 years ago, it’s also… pic.twitter.com/G2OUzIv5yB
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 15, 2024
The View is threatening Democrat elites to pick Kamala to replace Joe Biden or else…
“No Democrat nominee will win without the black vote. Black women will not support Kamala Harris being…overlooked.”
Democrats are trapped by their commitment to DEI.pic.twitter.com/HTdfDcirh2
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) July 18, 2024
If Harris becomes the nominee and Republicans need to pivot to running against her, Thomas Hodgson, Chairman of the Trump campaign in Massachusetts, told the Caller that the GOP should focus on getting as many eyes on Harris as possible.
“I would want to see probably a lot of conversations with her, because she doesn’t articulate herself very well. I think it would expose the fact that she’s done very, very little,” Hodgson said. “She was supposedly in charge of the border. She never went to the border. The border has been open … She just doesn’t care. She doesn’t care to articulate what is happening or shouldn’t be happening. And so I would want to see just a lot of conversation around that.”
As the RNC kicked off and Republicans unified for four straight nights, the Democratic party continued its civil war over whether Biden should remain their presidential candidate.
Meanwhile, Biden did a sit down with Black Entertainment Television (BET) on Tuesday. While preaching about how people should treat each other, he appeared to call his Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “the black man” after forgetting his name.
“And so, it’s all about, it’s all about treating people with dignity. And it’s about making sure that — look, I mean, for example — look at [the heat I’m getting] because I named a, uh, the secretary of defense, the black man,” Biden says, though part of his statement sounded garbled.
“I named Ketanji Brown, I mean, because of the people I’ve named,” Biden continued.
Biden also told BET that he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if he was diagnosed with a medical condition. Earlier in July it was revealed that a neurologist and Parkinson’s disease specialist visited the White House several times in recent months. (RELATED: White House Aides Reportedly Confirm Biden Exhibits Classic Dementia Symptom)
The apparent gaffes and senior moments, and now a COVID-19 diagnosis, appear to have fueled increased anxiety about Biden’s fitness for office and whether he can win the presidential election. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, an ally Biden has previously said he didn’t expect to try to oust him, told the president that it would be best if he chose to drop out of the race, according to ABC News.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, another close ally of the president’s, told the president that if he chooses to keep his campaign going, he will jeopardize the party’s chances of winning in November, Axios reported. Even former President Barack Obama is telling people close to him that Biden should rethink is 2024 run, according to the Washington Post.
If Harris become the nominee and tries to separate herself from the sinking ship of Biden, Republican Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted told the Caller it shouldn’t matter. Harris’ track record, he said, isn’t that great either.
“If Democrats who elected Joe Biden in a primary process don’t make him their nominee, they are the ones who are trying to hijack democracy. And together, or if somehow at the top, Kamala Harris, she’ll be on the ticket either way. She’s the most left-wing candidate they’ve ever had on their ticket,” Husted said. “She does not do much. She was supposed to be in charge of the border. Remember? They said Kamala Harris will be our borders czar and that’s been a miserable failure. We’ve seen terrorists and illegals coming in from at the world right across our border.”
Biden has maintained that he is staying in the race, and so has his staff, but now top Democratic aides are reportedly expecting the president drop out of the race as soon as this weekend, according to Axios.
As Biden prepares, potentially, to drop out, the Trump team turns their targets to Kamala Harris, brilliant orator, with an ad just featuring her brilliant speeches: pic.twitter.com/ADJCaJ9aKU
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 30, 2024
Harris is viewed by many to be the most likely replacement, partially because she can inherit the DNC’s cash. And as the odds of Harris being the new Democratic nominee pick up, even Trump has acknowledged she could turn into his opposition, causing him to ramp up attacks on the vice president.
While Biden pushes to stay in the race, his campaign is quietly testing how Harris would stack up against Trump through polling, sources told both The New York Times and NBC News. The decision to test Harris’ electability came from the “stepping up” of attacks on the vice president at campaign rallies from Trump, the source told the outlet.
WATCH: “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris both have approval ratings in the mid-30s. So if there is any unifying item in our politics right now, it’s that the Democrat administration that’s in charge has completely failed,” says @ScottJenningsKY. pic.twitter.com/7SwXA2e7XR
— Bobby LaValley (@Bobby_LaVallley) July 18, 2024
Speaker Mike Johnson told the Caller the Trump campaign’s effort to contrast Biden’s administration with its own from 2016-2020 shouldn’t change if Harris is the nominee.
“We don’t change anything. She is a co-owner in these policy disasters. She’s the vice president. She owns it. She can’t run from it,” the speaker told the Caller.
“We’re happy to run against Kamala or whoever they put up,” he added. “This election’s not about personalities, it’s about policies.”
Henry Rodgers contributed to this report.
