Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) mentioned Vice President Kamala Harris will “have to answer to how” she by no means publicly voiced considerations about her former boss, Joe Biden’s, health to function president, regardless that she had a front-row seat in his administration. (Watch video beneath.)
In an interview with Stephen A. Smith launched on Thursday, Shapiro was requested to weigh in on Harris’ latest evaluation that she was incorrect to carry again from advising Biden in opposition to pursuing one other presidential run.
“Look, I haven’t read the former vice president’s book,” Shapiro mentioned of Harris. “She’s going to have to answer to how she was in the room, and yet never said anything publicly.”
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Shapiro burdened that he didn’t have the identical entry to Biden as Harris, however nonetheless engaged with him and his crew relating to their marketing campaign’s efficiency in Pennsylvania, a swing state.
“I think, Stephen, you understand, if you can’t win Pennsylvania, it’s pretty darn hard to win the national election,” Shapiro mentioned. “And I was very vocal with him privately, and extremely vocal with his staff about my concerns about his fitness to be able to run for another term. I was direct with them.”
Shapiro advised that Biden’s crew didn’t give the previous president an correct image of his projected efficiency within the state.
“I told them what I was seeing in the polls. I think it seemed to me that maybe his staff wasn’t counseling him with all the information that we knew on the ground here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro added.
Fast-forward to 38:47 for Shapiro’s feedback on Harris:
In her new e-book set to be printed subsequent week, Harris conceded that it was a mistake to relaxation the decision on whether or not Biden would run for reelection on simply him and his spouse, Jill.
“‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized,” she mentioned in an excerpt launched by The Atlantic. “Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”
Still, Harris made clear she didn’t consider Biden was unfit to serve regardless of his poor efficiency within the debate in opposition to Donald Trump in June 2024, which prompted a wave of requires him to exit the race.
“I don’t believe it was incapacity. If I believed that, I would have said so. As loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country,” she mentioned.
Meanwhile, in a separate excerpt of her forthcoming memoir, Harris confirmed she thought of Shapiro to be her working mate however mentioned she “had a nagging concern that he would be unable to settle for a role as number two and that it would wear on our partnership.” She additionally claimed that within the course of, the governor bombarded her employees with questions in regards to the vice chairman’s residence and claimed he confirmed “lack of discretion” within the lead-up to her vice presidential decide announcement.
A spokesperson for Shapiro advised Politico, “It’s simply ridiculous to suggest that Governor Shapiro was focused on anything other than defeating Donald Trump and protecting Pennsylvania from the chaos we are living through now.”
Shapiro, who’s broadly thought of a 2028 presidential hopeful, didn’t rule out working for the White House within the subsequent election.
“I’m concerned about what I’m seeing in my party, and I know that I have a voice that needs to be heard in that process, how that voice ultimately gets heard, how it manifests itself, what I ultimately do, we’ll see,” Shapiro advised Smith.
Harris has additionally not closed the door to launching one other presidential run in 2028.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/josh-shapiro-harris-biden-2024-run_n_68cd5e8fe4b02387cfebd730