Vice President Kamala Harris retains breaking the cardinal rule of a operating mate and second-in-command: Do no hurt.
Harris is below intense scrutiny, given she is President Joe Biden’s heir apparent, but, she seems to be repeating the errors of her failed 2020 White House marketing campaign, delivering an uneven efficiency as his No. 2. And it’s proving to be a detrimental distraction for Biden’s administration.
Presidential historian and Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley in contrast Harris to former Vice Presidents Dan Quayle and Spiro Agnew, as “two males with each toes perpetually of their mouths.”
Quayle, as an illustration, earned a status for uttering unintelligible phrases, corresponding to “I’ve made good judgments up to now. I’ve made good judgments sooner or later.”
“When they have been VPs, joke writers for late-night comedians by no means have been missing for materials. They have been made enjoyable of for simply getting out of mattress within the morning,” Shirley advised the Washington Examiner.
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Shirley’s evaluation was that Harris appears in “over her head,” contrasting her with former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel. Although she was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been assembly recurrently with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to bone up on overseas coverage.
“Nervous Americans need to take the heartbeat each day of Joe Biden, simply to ensure he’s nonetheless alive for worry she would possibly change into president,” Shirley quipped of Harris. “She would possibly change into a reliable VP — however provided that God drops all the pieces else.”
Historian David Pietrusza referenced Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance when he was requested for examples of different headache-inducing vice presidents. The line concerning “a policeman’s lot” not being “a contented one” additionally applies to White House understudies, based on Pietrusza.
“More typically than not, they may very well be dumped from the ticket or about to be dumped from the ticket,” he stated.
Pietrusza cited rumors that Calvin Coolidge was going to be nixed from the 1924 Republican presidential lineup earlier than Warren Harding’s demise in 1923. The identical hypothesis plagued Charles Curtis and Herbert Hoover’s doomed GOP reelection run in 1932.
“FDR grew more and more suspicious of his more and more conservative Vice President John Nance Garner, and Garner was dumped from the 1940 ticket to get replaced by Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace,” Pietrusza stated of the Democrats. “Wallace, in flip, was dumped from the 1944 ticket to get replaced by Sen. Harry Truman.”
Dwight Eisenhower tried to sack Richard Nixon in 1956, whereas John Kennedy was “cautious” of Lyndon Johnson, Pietrusza added of the bipartisan phenomenon.
“Richard Nixon completely personally despised Spiro Agnew, however Agnew was too widespread with the Republican base to be dumped in 1972 — however to not be faraway from workplace after that,” he stated of the profitable federal tax fraud investigation into Agnew. “Gerald Ford named Nelson Rockefeller to be his vice president, however Bob Dole changed Rockefeller on the 1976 GOP ticket.”
Booting Harris, the nation’s first minority lady in her place, earlier than the 2024 contest could also be extra troublesome for Biden than merely retaining her. Yet, she does make White House aides’ jobs tougher, and her approval score trails former Vice President Mike Pence at roughly the identical level of their tenures.
Harris’s issues are exacerbated by her thorny portfolio of points, together with unlawful immigration and voter entry. White House press secretary Jen Psaki has reiterated that Harris requested to spearhead the administration’s efforts regarding the latter, however their insistence that Biden’s presidency is called the “Biden-Harris administration” hyperlinks the 2 collectively.
Harris will travel to El Paso with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday after receiving a barrage of criticism for not visiting the southern border, regardless of being tasked with addressing the “root causes” of unlawful migration.
Pressure ramped up this month after Harris advised NBC’s Lester Holt she had not been to Europe when he pressed her on why she had not flown to the border.
“I imply, I don’t perceive the purpose that you just’re making,” she said.
In March, she was slammed for laughing and replying “not today” in response to an identical query.
Harris’s different awkward moments vary from by chance saying “abandoned land mines” instead of “abandoned mine lands” throughout a January West Virginia native information media interview lobbying Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin on the $1.9 trillion coronavirus spending package, to handing out cookies sharing her likeness to reporters on her journey to Northern Triangle international locations earlier this month.
Harris’s husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, defended his spouse this week from the backlash, arguing breaking down gender and racial boundaries “means you would possibly get minimize generally.”
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“It’s price it as a result of she’s leaving a path for others,” he stated in an interview. “No one needs to see anybody they love attacked or criticized, however that is half of what she signed up for on this life of public service, and she or he has spent her total profession in public service as a lawyer in elected positions, so look, it is half of the territory.”
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Tags: News, Biden, Joe Biden, White House, Biden Administration, Kamala Harris
Original Author: Naomi Lim
Original Location: Harris joins ranks of headache-inducing vice presidents
