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Kamala Harris makes Joe Biden ‘fight back tears’ in first appearance together

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have appeared together for the first time since he announced her as his choice for vice president.

Sam ClenchSam Clench
@SamClench
11 min read
August 13, 2020 - 11:41AM
US election: Joe Biden selects Kamala Harris as running mate

The Democratic Party’s newly named nominee for vice president, Kamala Harris, made her first public appearance alongside Joe Biden today.

Ms Harris, a former prosecutor, largely used her new platform to prosecute the case against re-electing incumbent US President Donald Trump.

“As somebody who has presented my fair share of arguments in court, the case against Donald Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut,” she said.

But there was a poignant moment as well, as Ms Harris described her experience working with Mr Biden’s son Beau, who died after a battle with brain cancer in 2015.

“Ever since I received Joe’s call, I’ve been thinking about the first Biden that I really came to know. And that, of course, is Joe’s beloved son – one of his beloved sons – Beau,” Ms Harris said.

“In the midst of the Great Recession, Beau and I spoke on the phone practically every day, sometimes multiple times a day. (We were) working together to win back billions of dollars for homeowners from the big banks of the nation, that were foreclosing on people’s homes.

“And let me just tell you about Beau Biden. I learned quickly that Beau was the kind of guy who inspired people to be a better version of themselves. He really was the best of us. And when I’d ask him, ‘Where’d you get that? Where did this come from?’, he’d always talk about his dad.

“And I will tell you, the love that they shared was incredible to watch. It was the most beautiful display of the love between a father and a son.”

Reporters in the room said Mr Biden “fought back tears” as Ms Harris spoke about his son.

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“Beau talked about how Joe would spend four hours every day riding the rails from Wilmington (where they lived) to Washington so he could make breakfast for his kids in the morning and make it home in time to tuck them in bed each night,” she continued.

“All of this so two little boys, who had just lost their mum and their sister in a tragic accident, would know that the world was still turning.

“That’s how I came to know Joe. He’s someone whose first response when things get tough is never to think about himself, but to care for everyone else.

“He’s someone who never asks, ‘Why is this happening to me?’, and instead asks, ‘What can I do to make life better for you?’ His empathy, his compassion, his sense of duty to care for others is why I am so proud to be on this ticket.”

It was their first appearance together since Mr Biden picked Ms Harris to be his running mate. Picture: Olivier Douliery/AFP
It was their first appearance together since Mr Biden picked Ms Harris to be his running mate. Picture: Olivier Douliery/AFP
Mr Biden sat nearby as Ms Harris spoke. Picture: Olivier Douliery/AFP
Mr Biden sat nearby as Ms Harris spoke. Picture: Olivier Douliery/AFP

Ms Harris’s speech was unusual in one important respect. While she delivered it at a lectern, with the American flag serving as a backdrop – both very typical of such events – coronavirus restrictions meant there was no audience.

She was speaking to an empty room, save for the reporters watching on.

The content of the speech, however, was exactly what you would expect. Ms Harris introduced herself to voters, giving a rundown of her background; she heaped praise on Mr Biden; and she slammed Mr Trump.

Her sharpest critique focused on the President’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“When other countries were following the science, Trump pushed miracle cures he saw on Fox News. While other countries were flattening the curve, he said the virus would just, poof, go away. Quote, ‘Like a miracle,’” Ms Harris said.

RELATED: Donald Trump still thinks virus will ‘just disappear’

“So when other countries opened back up for business, what did we do? We had to shut down again. This virus has impacted almost every country, but there’s a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation.

“It’s because of Trump’s failure to take it seriously from the start. His refusal to get testing up and running. His flip-flopping on social distancing and wearing masks. His delusional belief that he knows better than the experts.

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“All of that is the reason that an American dies of COVID-19 every 80 seconds. It’s why countless businesses have had to shut their doors for good. It’s why there is complete chaos over when and how to reopen our schools.

“Trump is also the reason millions of Americans are now unemployed. He inherited the longest economic expansion in history from Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And then, like everything else he inherited, he ran it straight into the ground.

“Our economy has taken one of the biggest hits out of all the major industrialised nations, with an unemployment rate that has tripled. This is what happens when we elect a guy who isn’t up for the job. Our country ends up in tatters, and so does our reputation around the world.”

She compared Mr Trump’s handling of the current pandemic to his predecessor Barack Obama’s response to ebola.

“It didn’t have to be this way. Six years ago, in fact, we had a different health crisis. It was called ebola. And we all remember that pandemic,” said Ms Harris.

“But you know what happened then? Barack Obama and Joe Biden did their job. Only two people in the United States died. Two. That is what’s called leadership.”

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This is not a fair comparison.

Ebola did not spread across the globe to nearly the same extent as COVID-19 – there were fewer than 30,000 cases worldwide, and about 11,000 deaths. Only eight cases were recorded outside Africa.

Mr Trump did call for Mr Obama to resign over his handling of ebola in 2014, but that wasn’t exactly an unusual occurrence at the time.

During today’s White House media briefing, Mr Trump was asked whether he had watched Ms Harris’s speech.

“I watched her (during the Democratic primaries). I watched her poll numbers go boom, boom, boom, down to almost nothing. And she left angry, she left mad. There was nobody more insulting to Biden than she was,” said the President.

“She said horrible things about him, including accusations made about him by a woman where she, I guess, believed the woman. And now all of a sudden she’s running to be vice president, saying how wonderful he is.”

In April of last year, when Ms Harris was running to be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, she said she believed women who had accused Mr Biden of inappropriate touching and kissing.

“I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story, and having the courage to do it,” she said.

Nearly a year later, in March of this year, one of Mr Biden’s former staffers, Tara Reade, accused him of sexual assault. Ms Harris, who had already dropped out of the race by then, stopped short of saying she believed Ms Reade, but said she “has a right to tell her story”.

“I thought it was a very unusual pick, because she said such bad things – and you know better than anybody what – you won’t write it, because you know, you don’t want to do that, but you know better than anybody. She said horrible things about him. Horrible things,” Mr Trump continued.

“And she mocked him. Openly mocked him. That’s why I thought that was a very risky pick, because I’m sure that’ll be played back, not necessarily by me, but others.”

The “horrible things” Mr Trump mentioned are presumably a reference to the clash Ms Harris and Mr Biden had at one of the presidential debates, during a discussion about racial issues.

“I’m going to direct this at Vice President Biden. I do not believe you are a racist. And I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” she said at the time.

“But I also believe — and it’s personal, and it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”

I need to run through some more context here.

Ms Harris was talking about a controversial comment Mr Biden made earlier the same month, touting his working relationship with two pro-segregation senators decades ago as proof of his ability to work constructively with the other side of politics.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of American school districts implemented mandatory bussing policies, which saw students assigned and transported to particular schools in an effort to achieve a level of racial balance.

There was fierce opposition to the bussing policy from some quarters, and Mr Biden opposed the idea of a federal law mandating its implementation nationwide, arguing it was a matter for state and local governments.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public school, and she was bussed to school every day. And that little girl was me,” Ms Harris told Mr Biden at the debate.

“So I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously. We have to act swiftly.”

Mr Biden dismissed the attack as “a mischaracterisation of my position across the board”.

“If we want to have this campaign litigated on who supports civil rights, and whether I did or not, I’m happy to do that. I was a public defender. I didn’t become a prosecutor, I left a good law firm to become a public defender,” he added, in a swipe at Ms Harris’s former career.

Beyond that exchange, it isn’t clear what “horrible” things Mr Trump feels Ms Harris said about Mr Biden. He hasn’t been very specific.

RELATED: Kamala Harris ambushes Biden at presidential debate

Donald Trump at today’s White House briefing. Picture: Nicholas Kamm/AFP
Donald Trump at today’s White House briefing. Picture: Nicholas Kamm/AFP

Continuing his answer, Mr Trump segued into an attack on some of Ms Harris’s policy positions, before returning to the subject of her failed run for president.

“The other thing, if you look, she wants a $3 trillion tax hike. No fracking. How do you think no fracking is going to play in Pennsylvania? That’s a big fracking state,” he said.

“She wants no fossil fuels. No fossil fuels. Really? Tell that to Texas.

“And then I hear, ‘Trump is only one point up in Texas.’ No, they said the same thing with crooked Hillary Clinton. They said, ‘Texas is in play, Trump is down in Texas.’ And then I won Texas immediately, and they said, when the polls had closed, ‘Trump has won Texas.’ And I won by a lot. And I won Georgia by a lot. It’s almost like a duplication, it’s the same thing as before, except we have much more energy now than we ever had in 2016.”

Not that it really matters, but for the sake of accuracy, the polling average in 2016 actually had Mr Trump ahead of Ms Clinton by 11.7 per cent, which was higher than his eventual margin of victory.

The current polling average only has him leading Mr Biden by 2 per cent in Texas, which has excited some Democrats, who think they might have a chance of claiming the Republican stronghold. Spoiler alert: They almost certainly don’t.

“She wants to defund, or at least substantially reduce, money going to police departments. And you can’t do that. You can’t do that. It’s actually got to be the opposite,” said Mr Trump.

“I’ve been endorsed by so many police departments. I’m getting a really good one this week. Really big, really good.

“We’ve done a real job, and I think we’re going to be really successful. I was surprised that he picked her.

“She dropped like a rock. I didn’t, when I ran. I ran against 17 people, mostly governors and senators, some others – Ben Carson was very strong, very good – couple of others, but mostly governors, mostly senators. And I ran. And I went up.

“She ran and she went down to rock bottom. I don’t think she got to run her first – to take a vote in the first state. So generally speaking, you don’t want to pick somebody who went down. She went down.

“But she went down in a very terrible way, and she said horrible things about Biden. She said far worse about Biden than I ever did. And now she’s running as vice president, so how does that work?”

Asked specifically about Ms Harris’s critique of his coronavirus response, Mr Trump accused her of getting her facts wrong.

“I think that’s probably one of the reasons she was a terrible candidate and was forced to leave the race. Because she got her facts wrong. You know, she’s very bad on facts, she’s very weak on facts,” said Mr Trump.

“Just so you understand, we’ve done more testing than any other country in the world by far.

“We have better testing than any country in the world. They call, they want to know where do we get it, how do we get it? We have better testing. When you do as much testing us, however, as you understand, you develop more cases.

“We’ve done the best job of any country in the world.

RELATED: Trump’s baffling excuse for scale of US outbreak

“And on top of that, when you look at the numbers, how we were impacted less than other countries. And now you look at the explosion of countries that you would have said did such a good job – and some of them had advantages over us for obvious reasons, having to do with the pandemic – but when you look at the job that we’ve done compared to others, we’ve done a great job.”

The US has 5.3 million confirmed cases of the virus, and its death toll is approaching 170,000. It recorded 54,345 new infections today, and 1386 deaths.

For context, Australia – one of those countries Mr Trump says is suffering an “explosion” – recorded 428 cases yesterday.

We’ve had about 22,000 infections throughout the entire pandemic, which is less than half of what the US is recording each day.

Another of the countries Mr Trump alluded to, New Zealand, has just sent its largest city, Auckland, back into lockdown. It has a grand total of 36 active cases.

RELATED: New Zealand rocked by new coronavirus infections

“I read today that she’s very short on facts. I think she’s going to be a big failure, and I look forward to the debate between her and Mike Pence,” Mr Trump concluded.

That debate between Ms Harris and Mr Pence is meant to happen on October 7. Mark it in your diary, because it should be dramatic.

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Original URL: https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/kamala-harris-makes-joe-biden-fight-back-tears-in-first-appearance-together/news-story/939e3ef25e314a82d471d8506105e9c4