Kamala Harris insists she’s ‘ready to serve,’ touts her ‘capacity to lead’
Vice President Kamala Harris claimed she is “ready to serve’’ and touted her “capacity to lead” when asked last week about boss President Biden’s advanced age and voters’ concerns over it.
“I am ready to serve — there’s no question about that,” Harris told the Wall Street Journal.
She insisted that everyone who observes her performance in office “walks away fully aware of my capacity to lead.”
The veep’s remarks sparked backlash from critics — including members of her own party — who said Harris has a dismal track record of actually getting things done and that there is clearly no love lost between the pair these days.
A Democratic insider told The Post on Monday that Harris should reassess her readiness — after leaving Biden exposed on the border crisis, which she was put in charge of helping to resolve before fading away from the issue.
“If the vice president is ‘ready to serve’, she should start with her current role as border czar,” the Dem source told The Post.
“The disaster we see at our southern border does not inspire confidence, even among Democrats, in her ‘capacity to lead.’ “
A Republican strategist surmised that Harris’ remarks indicate she believes Biden is struggling with his job — and that people should know about it.
“Kamala Harris is saying the quiet part out loud and trying to signal to the Democrat donors and delegates that Joe Biden clearly is not fit for office — and if something were to happen to him, she would be ready to step in,” the source told The Post.
“The problem with that is that every issue Kamala Harris has touched, she has made worse, whether that’s the border or a host of other issues that she’s tried to take on while being vice president,” the strategist said.
“She’s the one politician in America who essentially can make Joe Biden look even semi-competent, which is impossible to do as well because he’s been the most incompetent and mentally unfit president we’ve ever had in the history of the United States.”
Another national GOP strategist told The Post, “Every voter in America, Democrat and Republican, needs to ask themself as they head to the ballot box this year if the threat of a Kamala Harris presidency is something they can stomach.”
The comments come on the heels of a book released last month, “Amateur Hour: Kamala Harris in the White House,” in which veteran Washington journalist Charlie Spiering wrote that Biden knows very well that Harris is “not up to the job” of commander in chief. In fact, he preferred Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as his running mate in 2020 — before caving to public pressure, the book said.
Harris spoke about being ready to take over if needed during an interview aboard Air Force Two — two days before special counsel Robert Hur’s scathing report touching on 81-year-old Biden’s condition dropped.
The report determined that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials,” but Hur opted not to press charges, citing precedent, Biden’s cooperation — and added, controversially, that a jury would likely see him as a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
Hur documented several instances of Biden’s forgetfulness during a five-hour interview with the president in October. Biden’s allies, including his personal lawyer Bob Bauer, who sat in on the Hur interview, have strenuously disputed the special counsel’s characterizations of their exchange.
But then during a presser to rebut Hur’s characterizations Thursday, Biden mixed up the presidents of Egypt and Mexico.
Biden is already the oldest sitting US president in the nation’s history and would finish off a second hypothetical term at 86.
A smattering of Republican critics have sought to paint Harris as the person who would end up finishing out Biden’s term if he is re-elected.
“We will have a female president of the United States,” Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley told supporters earlier this month. “The hard truth is it’s going to be me or Kamala Harris.”
Her insinuation was that former President Donald Trump can’t win the general election and that President Biden wouldn’t be able to serve out a full second term, leaving Harris.
Harris has laughed off the scenario.
In September, she told The Associated Press, “Biden is going to be fine, so that is not going to come to fruition.
“Every vice president understands that when they take the oath, that they must be very clear about the responsibility they may have to take over the job of being president. I am no different,” she said.
Harris has repeatedly defended Biden over questions about his age and mental acuity in the past.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with Biden, be it in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room, and other places — he is extraordinarily smart,” Harris told an ABC reporter last month. “He has the ability to see around the corner in terms of what might be the challenges we face as a nation or globally.”
Throughout their time in the White House, Biden has delegated a number of high-profile responsibilities to Harris, such as tapping her to helm the US response to the border crisis. Critics say the country has failed miserably on the migrant issue.
Harris, the first female vice president in US history, also has lately taken up a pronounced role in defending abortion rights. She has mounted a tour of the country championing that issue.
“I do believe that the majority of people have an empathy gene,” Harris told the Journal.
“And the more they realize what has actually been happening since the Dobbs decision came down, the more open they are to consider the fundamental point, which is: Should the government be telling a woman what to do?” she said of the US Supreme Court decision in June 2022 opening the door for states to knock down abortion rights.
Harris has sought to pin the blame on Trump for appointing three conservative justices to the Supreme Court who tipped the balance of power on the bench.
The vice president has a net -19.2-point favorability rating, while Biden has a net -15.3-point favorability rating, according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polling.
