Philadelphia, United StatesPresident Joe Biden said Tuesday that Kamala Harris will “go her own way” once she wins the 2024 election, in a bid to put more space between him and his vice president as she works to win over skeptical voters in 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 problems will be fresh and new. Donald Trump’s perspective is old and failed and, frankly, totally dishonest.” Biden’s comments may give Harris more license to raise her own policy positions in the critical closing phase of the presidential race, and appear to go further than Harris in distancing them. The vice president’s advisers have privately expressed some frustration that the 81-year-old president has focused too much on his own legacy, and not on the race to succeed him.
But Harris has recently faced increasing pressure to articulate how she would govern differently from Biden, a more complicated question than it first appears.
While Biden’s favorability ratings remain underwater, some of the most important parts of his legislative agenda, from infrastructure to lowering the costs of some prescription drugs, are popular, and any sign of agreement with the president on Foreign policy matters at a time of global crisis could be seen as imprudent. Harris herself has been reluctant to do anything that could be perceived as disloyal to Biden, who elevated her from senator in his first term to vice president and then handed her the reins of his political operation, endorsing her when he dropped out of the race in July. She has dismissed questions about how she would differ from the Democratic president by saying, “I’m not Joe Biden,” but has offered few details. At the same time, she has tried to appropriate the mantle of being the candidate who would bring positive change to the country, relying heavily on being from a different generation than Biden and Trump. Last week, in an interview on ABC’s “The View,” Harris said she couldn’t think of any Biden decision she would have made differently, a stance Trump prominently repeated at his rallies and on the internet. Harris later said that, unlike Biden, she would choose a Republican for her Cabinet if elected. On Tuesday, Biden spoke at the International Metalworkers Association hall in Philadelphia, cheering on a slate of local candidates, including Sen. Bob Casey, before a vibrant crowd: guys in button-down shirts and kente cloth alongside women who leaned on canes. They sat at tables adorned with red, white and blue balloons and ate from plastic plates filled with meatballs, kielbasa and rolls. “Every president has to go his own way, that’s what I did,” Biden said to a crowd chanting “Thank you, Joe!” “I was loyal to Barack Obama and charted my own path as president. That’s what Kamala is going to do.” Biden’s words were particularly poignant because he has participated in very few political events since he walked away from the 2024 race, a painful decision he said he made for the good of the country, after a disastrous debate performance and a riot within of the Democratic Party. “When I decided it was time to pass the torch to the next generation, I knew. I knew who I wanted to replace me,” Biden said. He also launched multiple attacks on Trump, calling him a loser, lashing out at the Republican candidate for his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election that he lost, his continued incitement of misinformation around the election, and his support for the violent mob that attempted overturn the election results on January 6, 2021. “Every generation faces a moment when democracy must be defended,” Biden said. “This is our moment.”
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