Biden Taps a Prosecutor to Beat Trump

Here’s the case she can make to the country.

(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

ON SUNDAY, PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN reaffirmed his commitment to America’s future and to protecting democracy.

He wisely put an end to his presidential candidacy and passed the party-leadership baton to a new generation: his vice president, Kamala Harris.

Harris is the right choice for this moment. She can best unite the party and avoid a divisive intraparty fight. Two decades younger than Biden, she activates voters longing for someone to whom they can relate. She stands for the future, not the past.

But her most important attribute is this: She can prosecute the case against Donald Trump. Even before the Democratic nomination is formally settled, her presumed status as the frontrunner gives the 2024 presidential race an entirely new dynamic: the prosecutor against the convicted felon.

As former prosecutors, we can affirm how a onetime state attorney general, district attorney, and trial lawyer such as Harris is schooled in sharp debate, political or otherwise. Prosecutors are trained to quickly grasp issues, listen to witnesses for dissembling or other flaws in testimony, and expose them to jurors.

Lest there be any doubt about Harris’s ability to do just that, check out her 2019 Senate Judiciary Committee cross-examination of William Barr, Trump’s then–attorney general. Harris established that Barr never reviewed the evidence in the Mueller Report that undercut Barr’s misleading “summary” of it. She left Barr stammering and flustered. She crisply shot down his efforts to interrupt her.

One of us (Aftergut) worked with Harris in 2000 and can certify that she is iron-willed, with formidable prosecutorial talent and skills. Those qualities are desperately needed as the Democratic party now turns away from a damaging narrative about Joe Biden’s age and toward Trump’s unfitness for office.

The former president is running an anti-democratic campaign of retribution, and has vowed to be a “dictator on Day One.” He supports “termination” of the Constitution. His Supreme Court appointees not only enabled the overturning of Roe v. Wade but invented a broad swath of presidential immunity. He regularly refers to the free press as “the enemy of the people.”

Each of these is a potential vulnerability for Trump—an opening for Harris to make the case against him. She can also powerfully argue that a president who incites an insurrection cannot be returned to office.

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FROM HER PLATFORM AS VICE PRESIDENT, Harris has been the country’s most visible advocate for reproductive freedom. The Washington Post reports that Harris, after the Court overturned Roe, “took dozens of trips to Democratic strongholds and battleground states, warning that the Supreme Court decision was an example of Republican overreach that would intensify if voters didn’t send them a message at the ballot box.”

Harris can expect to face more attacks from Republicans for her work early in the Biden administration on the issue of immigration. But she can sketch bold future policies to flip the script on this issue. In particular, she can nail Trump for hypocritically and cynically blocking the Senate’s border security and immigration reform bill in January to perpetuate the problem for campaign purposes.

To muster a winning margin in the Electoral College, Harris should send clear signals that she will govern from the center. She could say if Americans give her the votes to defeat Trump, she will be asking Republicans to join in boosting border-security resources with legislation that can also protect the legitimate asylum process and treat “Dreamers” fairly. She can proudly state that crime has fallen in the Biden/Harris administration, including what projects to be “the largest one-year decline in murder ever recorded,” according to Jeff Asher, a former CIA analyst who analyzes crime trends.

On gun safety, six in ten citizens say it’s too easy to get a gun and stricter controls are needed. Harris has called for universal background checks, a ban on military-style “assault rifle”-style firearms, and more mental health care funding. And as the head of the White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, she is well positioned to campaign on this issue.

In March, Harris went to Parkland, Florida, and launched a national resource center for red flag laws to assist states in developing gun-safety legislation. This experience endows her with unusual credibility in critiquing the Trump-influenced Supreme Court for enabling ownership of bump stocks and allowing concealed weapons on the street.

Her time as vice president has brought her direct experience with the most urgent questions of foreign policy. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson has written that he cannot recall any VP “who has become steeped in international affairs more quickly and more thoroughly than Kamala Harris.” At this year’s Munich Security Conference, she held a joint news conference with Volodymyr Zelensky, declaring proudly that “Kyiv stands free and strong.” She also met privately with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, calling for all hostages to be released with a ceasefire and to end the tragic humanitarian crisis the war in Gaza has caused.

Harris can take credit for the Biden-Harris administration’s role in helping to create America’s robust post-COVID economy and getting inflation down to levels where the Fed is considering an interest rate cut—even while acknowledging that Americans continue to feel squeezed by grocery store prices.

We fully expect Trump to attack Harris for the Biden mistakes in implementing the military exit from Afghanistan. She can respond that while it would be inappropriate to disclose her private advice to President Biden, she is glad we are out of an unwinnable war, and she will protect American lives in withdrawing from any combat situation. She should warn any foreign adversary to expect no gain from testing her will if she becomes president.

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KAMALA HARRIS BRINGS TOGETHER impressive policy experience and the political skill set needed to tackle the unique menace that is Donald Trump. A strenuous campaign—for her and her supporters—lies ahead, and on a compressed time schedule.

Fortunately, she understands that in this year’s election, the future of our democracy is on the ballot. It is up to each of us to rise to the challenge.