Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. It’s running in short supply in the Biden White House and the Harris presidential campaign by extension.
After a head-spinning July, the Harris campaign has 93 days to stand up a national political operation. The trust deficit threatens to subsume Vice President Harris’ admittedly strong start, even before her shifting policy positions come under scrutiny.
Last November, Harris assured the public that, "not only is he {Biden} absolutely authoritative in rooms around the globe, but in the Oval Office."
In February, she deemed him, "bold and vibrant."
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Over the last month, the American public learned that none of these descriptors fit the commander-in-chief. Voters are smarter than politicians give them credit for, and this case was no exception. The house of cards collapsed on a debate stage in Atlanta, ending Biden’s re-election hopes, and fueling allegations of a cover-up for all around him, including his vice president.
Then, weeks after claiming that only the "Lord Almighty" or a "medical condition" would cause him to drop his bid, suddenly Biden was out and Harris was in.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared the decision had "nothing to do with his health," but Biden’s 11-minute speech to the nation lacked any explanation of his remarkable U-turn and reversal from his pledge that he was "to running this race to the end."
Vice President Harris cannot claim ignorance. Early in his term, Biden declared that she would be the "last person in the room" and enjoy the access that his former governing partner, Barack Obama, bestowed upon him during his two terms as vice president.
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Indeed, a Fox News Digital investigation uncovered at least 80 encounters between Biden and Harris, a number that only captures public meetings. The actual number could be much higher.
To be clear, November’s election will hinge on more than just the events around Biden’s withdrawal. The challenge for Harris is that the issue set isn’t much better, either.
Take the southern border, where efforts are underway to separate her from the political nightmare it has become. In March 2021, an Associated Press headline declared, "Biden taps VP Harris to lead response to border challenges." Since then, migrant encounters at the border have reached all-time highs. Immigration even supplanted the economy atop voters’ list of concerns in public polling this spring.
Now, the mainstream media is running cover for Harris, quibbling over the term "border czar," dismissing it as a "misleading label" from Republicans while ignoring her broader culpability.
Ringing equally hollow are the Biden-Harris efforts to cast the election as a "defense of democracy." It’s long been a soundbite for the Biden administration. To be fair, the issue polled surprisingly high in the 2022 midterm elections where Democrats exceeded all expectations, trailing only the economy in the minds of voters, according to exit polls.
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Yet it’s a tougher landing to stick when the party nominee is anointed by party insiders without ever receiving a vote. Harris did not receive the nomination "from the grassroots, bottom up," as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer laughably claimed.
Meanwhile, the man who received 14 million primary votes was frog marched from the White House under immense pressure from party elders, left-wing editorial boards and Hollywood fundraisers.
Harris has a litany of other views from her ill-fated 2020 presidential bid already re-surfacing: she called for $10 trillion dollars for climate change, she wanted to ban fracking, co-sponsored the Green New Deal and ending private health insurance. Some of these are so unpalatable that Harris is already walking away from them.
Before we get there, she should apply President Biden’s pledge to "always level with you and tell you the truth" to the events surrounding his withdrawal. More importantly, her role propping up an "elderly man with a poor memory" (in the words of Special Counsel Robert Hur) as the leader of the free world.
At the time, Harris blasted Hur’s description as "gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate."
Is it any wonder she has not sat down for any interviews or held a press conference since becoming the presumptive nominee?
Harris was either wrong or playing politics, and voters deserve to know which, although the answer is already clear.
