During a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Vice President Kamala Harris said she’s ready to serve as President in the event something should happen to 81-year-old President Biden.
“I am ready to serve. There’s no question about that,” Harris responded bluntly. Everyone who sees her on the job, Harris said, “walks away fully aware of my capacity to lead.”
“There was always going to be a lot of scrutiny and pressure on her in the 2024 campaign, and that moment’s here now,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who worked in the Obama and Clinton administrations and for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “I think that the special counsel’s report has sort of accelerated that moment.”
From The WSJ:
In recent months, Harris has taken on greater and more public responsibilities. She has become the administration’s lead messenger on abortion rights, was put in charge of the White House’s new Office of Gun Violence Prevention and is playing a higher-profile role in the administration’s handling of the war in Gaza.
Harris, who has joined Biden on calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and gave a forceful speech in Dubai on the conflict, has pushed the administration to articulate more empathy for Palestinians and to focus on a postconflict Gaza plan.
Shortly after the special counsel report was released, Harris’s team was asked by West Wing aides to have her appear on a Sunday news show to defend the president, according to a person familiar with the request. Harris didn’t want to wait. At an event on Friday, Harris publicly slammed the report as politically motivated and gratuitous, defending the president strongly as being “on top of and in front of it all.”
Despite Harris saying she’s ready to step in for Joe, the Biden Administration still insists he isn’t going anywhere; Biden will be the 2024 nominee.
More over at The Wall Street Journal:
“I am ready to serve.” Kamala Harris cited her “capacity to lead” before a special counsel report amplifying concerns about President Biden’s age (clarifies an earlier post, which has been deleted, to say her remarks came before the report’s release) https://t.co/p845AOKq8y
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 12, 2024
