US Vice President Kamala Harris is ready to replace President Joe Biden if necessary, she told the Wall Street Journal, amid growing concerns about his advanced age and apparent memory problems.
The remarks by Harris were first reported by the WSJ on Monday, a week after the VP had made them to the daily during a flight on Air Force Two. Harris was asked whether concerns over Biden’s memory meant she must convince the public she was ready to serve.
“I am ready to serve. There’s no question about that,” Harris stated boldly, brushing off the suggestion she actually needs to convince voters of anything. Anyone who sees her doing her job, “walks away fully aware of my capacity to lead,” she claimed.
Despite showing confidence about her leadership skills, Harris might still need to convince some voters, given her plummeting approval ratings.
According to a fresh poll by NBC, the VP’s rating reached a new low, with a combined 53% of registered voters viewing her negatively. A vast majority of those holding such an opinion of her – some 42% of all the respondents interviewed during the poll – said they were actually “very negative” about the VP. At the same time, only a combined 28% of them held a positive view of Harris.
The remarks by Harris, despite being publicized only now, came ahead of a bombshell report compiled by US special counsel Robert Hur on Biden’s handling of classified documents, which only reinforced concerns over the president’s health. The Hur report described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and noted that the president had exhibited “diminished faculties” in public.
The assessment prompted strong denial from the US administration, with Biden staging an extraordinary press conference to assure the public his memory was just fine and to angrily deny any suggestions to the contrary. During the event, however, the president managed to erroneously call his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi the leader of Mexico while discussing the situation in Gaza.