Harris vs. Trump—The Race America Needs
Biden still has time to guarantee a win for his party and his place in history.
YOU KNOW YOU’RE READY TO MOVE ON when you start envisioning a Kamala vs. Donald campaign and it makes you smile. At least I know that’s when I’m ready.
For more than two years, I’ve been on a Joe Biden rollercoaster. Now, amid a national outbreak of debate PTSD, there are signs that change may come. Daily polling trauma. Donors hitting pause. One report after another about Biden’s limited energy and cognitive lapses, past and present. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) trying to assess support for asking him to leave the race.
The Biden rollercoaster is idling, and I’m among the many concluding that it’s time to step off.
It’s not because of Biden’s Friday-night interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, although that was far from optimal. The president told truths about his stellar record, right up to Friday’s jobs report. He said nothing is wrong with him, except that one night—debate night—when he was exhausted and had a bad cold.
But his voice was still whispery eight days later, and his political strategy amounts to denialism. How can a president with 36 percent approval win re-election? Biden insisted the polls are wrong and he is the only one who can beat Trump. What if your friends and allies pressed you to step aside? “I’m not going to answer that question. It’s not going to happen.” What if he stays in and loses? “I’ll feel, as long as I gave it my all, and I did as good a job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”
Um, no.
Vice President Kamala Harris is not the presidential candidate of my dreams (trust me, my journey to this moment has been rocky). But she’s become a solid partner in an unexpectedly successful administration, dispatched to deal with foreign leaders and tasked with leading the battle against oppressive and dangerous Republican abortion bans. At the same time her husband, Doug Emhoff, the first ‘second gentleman’ and the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president, has become Biden’s “unofficial adviser” on antisemitism, as the Jewish Chronicle put it.
“Dougie, this issue has really found you,” Harris reportedly told him. “Now lean into it.” In the same way, abortion and Donald Trump have found Harris. As California attorney general, she ran the second-largest justice department in the United States, as she told Rachel Maddow five years ago. As a senator, she made her name by interrogating people like Trump-era Attorney General William Barr. As a 2020 presidential candidate, her most notable debate moment was challenging Biden over his busing stand in the 1970s.
The aggressive approach to Biden bothered me, but right now I’d give a lot to watch Harris deploy it against Trump. If Biden and the Democrats do the sensible thing, we’ll get that chance.
I see no way Trump would agree to another debate if his punching bag this time is a 59-year-old former prosecutor who was elected to the Senate the same year he won the White House, and who tracked his misadventures—from his dealings with Vladimir Putin to the “perfect” phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky that led to his first impeachment—as a member of the Judiciary, Homeland Security, and Intelligence committees. Harris is all too familiar with Trump’s record, his impeachments, the legal cases against him, and his constant falsehoods about Biden, Harris, and the state of the nation.
Even without a debate, think about the highlights reel you could put together as a campaign tool. Especially given Trump’s past attempts and future plans to weaponize the Department of Justice against people who’ve crossed him, including prosecution of his enemies, and the Supreme Court that just sent him a “go for it” signal with its ruling that presidents have immunity for all “official acts” (including trying to use the DOJ to overturn the election he lost), think about this question then-Sen. Harris asked Barr in 2019:
Harris: Attorney General Barr, has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?
Barr: I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t—
Harris: Yes or no?
Barr: Could you repeat that question?
Harris: I will repeat it. Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? Yes or no, please, sir?
Barr: The president or anybody else—
Harris: Seems you’d remember something like that and be able to tell us.
Barr: Yes, but I’m trying to grapple with the word, “suggest.” I mean, there have been discussions of matters out there that they have not asked me to open an investigation, but—
Harris: Perhaps they’ve suggested?
Barr: I don’t know. I wouldn’t say “suggest.”
Harris: Hinted?
Barr: I don’t know.
Harris: Inferred? You don’t know.
In a follow-up letter to the DOJ inspector general, Harris said Barr was unable or unwilling to respond to her question and urged the Office of the Inspector General “to investigate whether the A.G. has received or acted upon requests, suggestions, whether implied or explicit, to investigate the president’s perceived enemies.” It’s alarming to read that letter now, five years later, as Trump is hoping for a comeback and promising to govern as a “dictator on Day One.”
Democrats are in an existential crunch for time, and Harris is the practical choice. Governors and senators cannot possibly know what it’s like to run national races and do the job of president. Harris is the closest they’ve got, and since her name is already on the ticket, she is the only one who can seamlessly inherit the campaign organization and money.
There is an opportunity for Democrats to plan an orderly, organized 2024 convention that is a statement in itself: This is Chicago, but the Democrats of today are not the party that in 1968 was riven by the Vietnam War and saw that divide explode outside the hall into violence between protestors and police. It’s Chicago, but the Democrats of today are not the party that in 1924 took two weeks and 103 ballots to nominate a candidate. And the Democrats of today are absolutely not the vulgar, violent, repressive party of Trump.
Ohio has fixed its ballot deadline so a virtual roll call ahead of the August 19–22 convention is no longer necessary. Biden could deliver a dignified pass-the-torch address that rightfully brags about all he’s accomplished in difficult times. He could highlight his partnership with Harris. Democrats could nominate Harris and, if they’re really smart, unite in advance behind a vice presidential nominee: a reassuring senator or governor who is not up for re-election this year.
The main thing is a fresh start.
I ADMIT I’VE BEEN all over the map on Biden. Celebrating his bluntness about Vladimir Putin (“this man cannot remain in power”). Urging him to serve a single term for the good of the nation. Recognizing the core generosity in his senior-moment shoutout to a conservative congresswoman who had recently died in a car accident (which his advance text noted, Axios reported Friday). Advising him two months later to follow Nancy Pelosi’s example and step aside at age 82. Accepting his calculated maneuvering on crime, because it was good politics. Suggesting that his real problem was voters preferring theatrics to results. Adding up the many surprising ways he has laid foundations for a great American future. Admiring his record levels of fossil fuel production and climate change investment. Recognizing his mental toughness and commitment to his son and his job.
We all have more information now, including how Biden handled a direct confrontation with the man who is a lethal threat to the America we know. Donald Trump and his allies are mobilizing to turn America into a country we won’t recognize. Even a perfect ABC News interview would not have changed the fact that with 51.3 million people watching him face off against Trump, Biden choked.
It isn’t fair, and it does not change his record. I’m convinced, like many others, that future historians will rank him as one of our best. He should think about what his chapter in history will look like if he loses to an indicted, convicted, impeached former president who’d put us on the road to ruin in order to avoid his own.
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