‘Enabler in Chief’: As Biden digs in, Trump turns his attack on Kamala Harris

Washington: The Trump campaign has ramped up its attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris amid growing calls for Joe Biden to be replaced as the Democrats’ candidate for the US election.

As the White House held crisis talks urging staff to tune out the “noise” following the president’s horror performance in last week’s debate, Donald Trump’s allies and fundraising groups set their sights on Harris who would be a leading candidate to replace Biden if he chooses to stand down.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.Credit: AP

Looking to exploit the debate aftermath, a new ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee branded the vice president as “Biden’s Enabler In Chief” as it showed images of the 81-year-old falling asleep, tripping over and looking confused at various public events.

In an email to supporters, Trump’s Make America Great Again fundraising PAC accused Harris of botching her previous role as the administration’s chosen person to tackle the border crisis, and claimed she had “lied about Joe Biden’s failing mental faculties, which has allowed war and destruction to break out across the world”.

And Trump’s former immigration adviser Stephen Miller also lashed out, seeking to frame the Biden campaign in conspiratorial terms: “What did Kamala know and when did she know it?”

Volunteers with the Biden Harris campaign head to a debate night gathering last week in Atlanta.Credit: AP

“She is THE greatest cover up in the history of the presidency,” he wrote on X.

Republicans and conservative US media outlets have always taken aim at Harris, who is 21 years younger than Biden, portraying her as someone who got her job due to Democrat identity politics rather than merit.

This comes despite the fact the 59-year-old has been a former California attorney general, a district attorney of San Francisco and a key member of some of the Senate’s most powerful committees. In recent months, she has also played a central role galvanising voters over abortion and other social justice issues.

But as concerns have grown over Biden’s ability to do his job, with some polls placing her within striking distance of Trump in a hypothetical match-up, Republicans have racheted up their attacks.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has been increasing his national profile.Credit: AP

As vice president, Harris would be an obvious candidate to replace Biden if he chooses to stand down - something he still insists he will not do - although other “new generation” alternatives have some also been named, such as California governor Gavin Newsom, Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

But trying to sidestep Harris would prove exceedingly difficult for the party, not least because it would spark a major backlash from sections of the black community, who Democrats need to show up in force on polling day.

“If you do something that infuriates her or alienates her, those voters may not show – and that’s a problem,” one Democrat strategist told this masthead.

Nonetheless, if named as the party nominee Harris would have the benefit of taking over money raised by the Biden campaign and inherit campaign infrastructure, the strategist said.

She also has the highest name recognition among all the alternatives, and the highest polling among other would-be contenders.

Party elders such as South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn - who helped Biden secure the presidential nomination by ensuring the black community rallied behind him in 2020 - said he would support a Harris candidacy if Biden stepped down.

But he added: “I want this ticket to continue to be Biden-Harris. And then we will see what happens after the next election.”

But others, such as former Ohio Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan said “we have to rip the band-aid off” and get behind Harris.

President Joe Biden listens with Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff during a Juneteenth concert on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, June 10, 2024. Credit: AP

“@VP⁩ has significantly grown into her job, she will destroy Trump in debate, highlight choice issue, energize our base, bring back young voters and give us generational change. It’s time!” he wrote on X.

Amid the panic, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated today that Biden had no plans to pull out of the race and shot down reports that he is weighing up his options as “absolutely false”.

And Harris - along with the other potential replacements - have continued to back the president publicly. Appearing outside a fund-raiser in San Francisco on Tuesday, the vice president said she was “proud to be Joe Biden’s running mate.”

“Look, Joe Biden is our nominee,” she also told CBS News. “We beat Trump once, and we’re going to beat him again. Period.”

The president and vice president also had lunch privately at the White House on Wednesday and made a surprise joint appearance on a call to Democratic National Committee staff, reiterating that they were in the fight together.

White House chief of staff Jeff Zients held a separate call with about 500 White House staff in which he admitted that the last few days had been challenging.

According to Jean-Pierre, he also “talked about the importance of coming together as a team and also having each other’s backs.”

The pep talk came as a new New York Times/Siena poll found Trump leading Biden by six percentage points among likely voters and nine points among registered voters nationwide - a three-point shift toward Mr. Trump since the last Times/Siena survey, which was taken immediately before the debate.

However, according to statistician Nate Silver, the poll showed the debate had not “completely upended public opinion about the candidates”, but rather exacerbated Biden’s political liabilities surrounding his age, “which had already imperiled his re-election chances.”

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