Report: Joe Biden ‘Careful’ Not to Blame Kamala Harris for Election Defeat Wendell Husebo 30 Dec 2024
President Joe Biden does not appear to blame Vice President Kamala Harris for the landslide election loss to President-elect Donald Trump, Biden’s aides told the Washington Post on Saturday.
The president reportedly argues he could have still defeated Trump if he would have stayed in the race and ignored calls for him to step aside.
Biden’s belief appears to be at odds with reality, based on his poor debate performance, a lack of fundraising, and dropping poll numbers. About two-thirds of Democrats wanted Biden to withdraw, an AP-NORC poll found in July before Biden stepped aside.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), among other Democrats, publicly demanded Biden drop out: “A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
Months later, after Harris’s election loss, Biden told aides he could have still won and “has been careful not to place blame on Harris” for the election loss, the Post reported:
Biden and some of his aides still believe he should have stayed in the race, despite the rocky debate performance and low poll numbers that prompted Democrats to pressure him to drop out. Biden and these aides have told people in recent days that he could have defeated Trump, according to people familiar with their comments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Aides say the president has been careful not to place blame on Harris or her campaign.
But many Democrats blame Harris’s loss on Biden’s insistence in staying in the race so long that by the time he withdrew, Harris had little more than three months to campaign. Others contend that Biden undermined his own message by trying to hold onto the presidency rather than pave the way for a younger group of anti-Trump Democrats who could take the country into the future.
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https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2024/12/30/biden-careful-not-blame-harris-election-defeat/
