Philadelphia — President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Kamala Harris will “get her way” if she wins the 2024 election. That would allow more daylight between him and his vice president as he works to win over skeptical voters three weeks before Election Day.
“Kamala will lead the country in her own direction, and that is one of the most important differences in this election,” he said. “Kamala’s perspective on our issues will be refreshing and new. Donald Trump’s views are outdated, failed and, frankly, completely dishonest.”
Biden’s comments could give Harris more freedom to solidify her political and policy positions in the crucial closing stages of the presidential election, and could appear to put more distance between the two than Harris herself. The vice president’s aides have privately expressed some frustration that the 81-year-old president is too focused on his own legacy and uninterested in the race to succeed him.
But Harris has faced increasing pressure recently to make clear how she intends to govern differently from Biden. This is a trickier question than it appears on the surface.
Biden’s favorability ratings are still in the water, but some of the biggest pieces of his legislative agenda, from infrastructure to cutting the cost of some prescription drugs, are popular and send signals of daylight with the president on foreign policy during a global crisis. You can see that. Like reckless.
Harris herself has loathed doing anything that could be perceived as disloyal to Biden. Biden elevated her from first-term senator to vice president, then handed her the reins of his political career and supported Harris when she dropped out. Gyeongju in July.
“I’m not Joe Biden,” she said, dismissing questions about how she would differ from the Democratic president but offering few specifics. At the same time, she has tried to be a candidate who will bring positive change to the country, relying heavily on being from a different generation than Biden and Trump.
Harris said in an interview on ABC’s “The View” last week that she couldn’t think of a move by Biden that she would have made differently. This line is one that Trump prominently featured at rallies and online. She later suggested that, unlike Biden, she would choose a Republican for her cabinet if elected.
On Tuesday, Biden spoke at the Sheet Metal Workers International Association Hall in Philadelphia, pumping local candidates, including Sen. Bob Casey, to a lively crowd. Boys in button-down shirts and kente cloths stood next to reclining women. cane. They sat at a table decorated with red, white and blue balloons and ate food from plastic plates filled with meatballs, kielbasa and rolls.
Biden said, “Every president must chart his own path. “I did that,” he told the crowd. “Thank you, Joe!” “I was loyal to Barack Obama and cut my own way to becoming president. That’s what Kamala will do.”
Biden’s comments were especially poignant as he has done few political events since withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race. It was a decision he said he made for the good of the country following a disastrous debate performance and insurrection within the Democratic Party.
“When I decided it was time to pass the torch to the next generation, I realized: “I knew who I wanted to replace me,” Biden said.
He has also called Trump a loser, criticized the Republican candidate for refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election in which he lost, continued to spread misinformation about the election, and embraced violent mobs seeking to do so, among other things. They criticized each other in turn. Overturn the results of the January 6, 2021 election.
“Every generation faces a moment when we must defend our democracy,” Biden said. “This is our moment.”
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Associated Press White House correspondent Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
