'We're thinking about today. Honestly!' Kamala Harris insists she 'couldn't care less' about 'high-class gossip' and 'punditry' on whether she will be on the 2024 ticket
Vice President Kamala Harris refused to address speculation about the 2024 presidential ticket, telling NBC News that she couldn't care less about 'high class gossip.'
She insisted she and President Joe Biden are 'thinking about today' but her dismissal comes amid speculation the West Wing is frustrated with her, endangering her heir apparent status, and talk that Biden, who is 79, may not run again because of his age.
'I'm sorry, we are thinking about today,' she told NBC's Craig Melvin in an interview that aired Thursday on the Today Show. 'I mean, honestly I know why you're asking the question - because this is part of the punditry and the gossip around places like Washington, DC. Let me just tell you something. We're focused on the things in front of us. We're focused on what we need to do to address issues like affordable childcare.'
When he pressed her again about whether she'd be on the 2024 Democratic ticket, Harris refused to go there.
'The American people sent us here to do a job. And right now there's a lot of work to be done. And that's my focus. Sincerely,' she said.
Melvin also asked about an op-ed written by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times on Tuesday, suggesting Biden team up with Republican Rep. Liz Cheney for a bipartisan ticket in 2024.
Harris said she hasn't read the opinion piece. Friedman is one of Biden's favorite columnists and the president is a regular reader.
'I really could care less about the high class gossip on these issues,' the vice president said.
Vice President Kamala Harris refused to address speculation about the 2024 presidential ticket, telling NBC News she doesn't care about 'high class gossip'
Harris' dismissal comes amid speculation the West Wing is frustrated with her and that President Biden, who is 79, may not run again because of his age
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were together in Atlanta on Tuesday to push for federal voting rights legislation
Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, has become one of the most outspoken critics of Donald Trump, who has not ruled out running for the White House again in 2024.
She earned Trump's ire when she voted to impeach him for his role in encouraging the January 6th riot and when she joined the special committee investigating the insurrection at the Capitol. The former president has endorsed her opponent in the state's GOP primary this summer. House Republicans voted her off their leadership team after she joined the panel.
Friedman said putting her on the ticket would send a powerful message.
'This is the democratic way of defeating a threat to democracy. Not doing it is how democracies die. I am quite aware that it is highly unlikely,' Friedman wrote. 'Yet, I still think it is worth raising. There is no precedent for how close we’re coming to an unraveling of our democracy, either.'
Friedman's op-ed was published the same day as a Wall Street Journal editorial suggesting Hillary Clinton could make her political comeback in 2024.
'Several circumstances - President Biden’s low approval rating, doubts over his capacity to run for re-election at 82, Vice President Kamala Harris’s unpopularity, and the absence of another strong Democrat to lead the ticket in 2024 - have created a leadership vacuum in the party, which Mrs. Clinton viably could fill,' Democratic strategists Douglas E. Schoen and Andrew Stein wrote in the Journal.
An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal suggested Hillary Clinton could make a comeback presidential bid in the 2024 election
A New York Times columnists suggested President Joe Biden name Republican Liz Cheney (above) as his running mate in 2024 for a bipartisan ticket
Biden and Harris are both suffering from low approval ratings. A recent USA Today poll found that just 40 percent of voters approved of Biden's job in the White House. Harris' approval rating sat at 32 percent.
Voters have given Biden low marks for his handling of the economy. Inflation hit a 40-year high of 7 per cent this week. Meanwhile COVID cases continue to rise due to the Omicron variant.
Americans are facing empty grocery shelves, high prices at the gas pump and a shortage of services as businesses close due to staff contracting COVID.
Biden, 79, has said both publicly and privately he will run again in 2024. He is the nation's oldest president.
Clinton - who won the popular vote in 2016 but lost the electoral college to Trump - would be 77 years old if she ran and won in November 2024, taking office in January 2025.
Harris, too, has suffered criticism. Biden gave his vice president - the first woman and black American in the job - a high-profile portfolio but she has failed to deliver major progress on stopping the root causes of migration, which is causing a serge in immigrants at the border, and on advancing voting rights.
Her heir-apparent status appeared in danger amid reports of frustration among West Wing staff with her and her team while her allies insist she is being under utilized and has been given the most difficult tasks of the administration.
She joined Biden in Atlanta on Tuesday for his speech on voting rights, where he called for the Senate to kill the filibuster. Harris traveled separately to the city but she climbed aboard Air Force One after Biden landed. They were pictured walking off the plane together.
No comments