Kamala criticizes Trump’s vice presidential pick as she considers her options

Kamala Harris’s plan as Vice President was to dismiss JD Vance as nothing more than a stamp of approval for Donald Trump.

But now that she’s the presumptive Democratic nominee, her campaign is pointing to the Ohio senator as a big liability, looking to the vice presidential selection process itself and the public auditions of contestants to emphasize that point.

Vance’s rise — despite his relative lack of government experience — is giving Harris a new opportunity to attack Trump.

The message is not just that Vance is “weird,” as the vice president said at a fundraiser this weekend, or that he has abject views, aides said; is that the Ohio senator shouldn’t be one step away from the presidency, and Trump’s choice of him raises more questions about the running mate himself.

The strategy is also a way to focus on Trump’s age now that President Joe Biden is no longer part of the conversation, highlighting how close Vance could be to occupying the Oval Office if something were to happen to a 78-year-old president.

And pointing out flaws in Vance’s resume — as some potential Harris running mates are doing — is a way of arguing that Republicans are holding the presumptive Democratic nominee to a different standard when they attack her as a “DEI hire” (Diversity , Equity and Inclusion).

“We have a black woman, we have a white man, and no one asked the white man about experience,” Kamala Harris campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu told CNN.

After Vance was announced as Trump’s pick and while Democrats were still waiting to see whether Biden would drop out of the race, Harris told several aides that she saw Trump’s pick as bolstering her MAGA (Make America Great Again) base. rather than expanding the ticket’s appeal.

She and her team were excited to take on Vance, rather than the others on Trump’s list, eager to label him a hypocrite and Trump sycophant.

But now, as her potential running mates take turns criticizing Vance for his controversial comments about childless women and his changing stance on Trump, as well as questioning his Appalachian roots, Harris’ team is comparing Vance to people in their own country. list to try to create a contrast.

The 39-year-old Republican from Ohio is “one of the most unprepared people we have ever placed to serve as vice president of the United States,” Landrieu said, with qualifications that don’t go much beyond the constitutional minimum of being a 35-year-old natural-born U.S. citizen. .

“He didn’t even run a business. He never managed anything. And he’s about to be one step away from the biggest entity in the world, and the most important one,” Landrieu said.

“So it’s a fair question: how would we know if you have the ability to manage domestic and national security policy for the most powerful country in the world, which could happen at any moment?”, he concluded.

Harris, who was first elected to the Senate in 2016, spent as much time in the chamber as Vance, who was first elected in 2022, before she began preparing in 2018 to run for president.

And while Vance won statewide office, the potential candidates on Harris’s list — which includes several governors, a senator and a cabinet secretary — have more government service than Vance and have leadership experience in several previous positions, business and military (and NASA).

Cedric Richmond, the former Louisiana congressman and former White House adviser to Biden who is also a campaign co-chair, said he is “terrified” to think of Vance being in a position to become president overnight.

Several people hoping to be chosen as Harris’ running mate have echoed that message as they run for office.

“I’ve done a lot of hiring in my life — in businesses and nonprofits, in government — and it’s pretty obvious when someone’s resume shows that they can’t hold down a job or haven’t held down a job for more than a year or two, that there is something wrong with him,” said Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who is among those being evaluated, referring to Vance’s brief stints in his jobs before running for the Ohio Senate in 2022.

Pritzker said not only are the potential Democratic picks more experienced, but they have also been more consistent in their positions than Vance, who went from worrying eight years ago that Trump could be “the Hitler of America” to saying he has been completely won over. for Trump’s performance as president.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who ran for president four years ago after serving as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, made a similar point between interviews at his own public hearing to move up Harris’ list.

“I’m someone who believes that young people can bring something to the table,” said Buttigieg, 42, who argued that his relatively few years of government service were not a problem as Trump has changed the game on what counts as political experience. .

“But I think when you have no executive experience, certainly not in public administration, and very little experience in public office in general, that is a real concern,” he concluded.

Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, called Vance “the best choice to be the next vice president of the United States, while Kamala has been cosplaying the role since being chosen by Biden.”

He attacked Harris as “the most unserious presidential candidate in a generation,” adding, “No matter who Kamala chooses, she cannot cover up her disastrous record as Biden’s failed border czar, overseeing out-of-control inflation and releasing violent criminals.” back to the communities.”

Harris weighs his past experience in his choice

While former Attorney General Eric Holder oversees official vetting for Harris, the actual decision-making is kept to a tight circle around the vice president, led by her campaign chief of staff, Sheila Nix, and her chief of staff. from the office of the vice president, Lorraine Voles.

They are making many of the calls themselves, and fielding even more calls from friends old and new assured of their own political expertise as they push for their preferred choices.

Kamala Harris, 59, has the unique experience of leading a selection process just four years after going through it herself.

That process — and the way she has had to navigate the role under intense scrutiny — has been on her mind in conversations with, among others, Biden and former President Barack Obama, people familiar with the matter told CNNwith Biden’s emphatic comments about her readiness resonating with her as she makes that choice.

While she’ll be looking not just at what positions competitors have held but also at what they’ve done in those positions, advisors say her process won’t be as simple as comparing resumes.

“We are in a position where someone has already done the job of vice president,” a Harris aide told CNN. “She knows the challenges of this world in a way that you need to have someone who has a deep amount of resilience.”

These considerations are intertwined with immediate concerns that she continued to emphasize in internal meetings: the need to unify the party and remember that, despite her meteoric first week as a candidate, “we are the underdogs in this race,” as she said at a fundraiser in Massachusetts on Saturday afternoon (27).

As was the case when Biden was in his final deliberations about her four years ago, Harris believes the key factor has to be who will help her win, her aides say.

“Harris will select a vice president who is qualified and ready to serve the American people, protect their freedoms and fight for their future,” said campaign spokesman James Singer, once again trying to paint a contrast by reiterating an accusation that Harris did it herself – that Trump chose Vance because he supported her attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Questioning Trump’s age and health

With Biden out of the race, Trump is now the much older candidate. He is overweight, known for loving fast food, and has a philosophical objection to exercise. He never released his full medical records.

For Harris’ aides, that makes who he chose as his running mate an even more pressing question.

When then-Arizona Senator John McCain chose then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, he faced accusations of recklessness for selecting someone with so little experience, given that he was then the most prominent presidential candidate. old man running for the first time and had already gone through an episode of cancer.

McCain in 2008 was about six years younger than Trump is now. Palin had a few more months as governor of Alaska — and before that, as mayor and city council member of her small village of Wasilla — than Vance spent in the Senate.

Trump is the only American president elected without previous government or military experience. And even though he chose Vance to be less of a governance partner and more as someone who could continue his political movement, Trump said he believes the Ohio Republican would make a good president.

Asked about Democrats highlighting Trump’s age, his national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, made a similar argument to what Democrats were making a few weeks ago: “It’s not about age, it’s about competence.”

Still, that doesn’t change the realities that Democrats are much more eager to talk about now that they are no longer defending Biden.

“It has to make you question Donald Trump’s judgment. He knows how old he is,” Pritzker said. “And so the idea that he would choose someone one step away from the presidency, with so little experience — and in particular with so little experience in running anything — should raise a lot of questions in people’s minds.”

“Given the questions about President Trump’s health as well as his advanced age, the choice of a running mate here is as important as any since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s last campaign – and JD Vance is not Harry Truman,” Buttigieg said.

Roosevelt was 62 years old during his last campaign in 1944.

“Time is unbeatable,” said Richmond, “and [Vance] being so close to that, with that amount of experience and the lack of seriousness or appreciation for the work – that should worry a lot of people.”

This content was originally created in English.

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