By Dave Andrusko
By now, most of you I’m sure have read about last night’s turnabout-is fair-play episode of the bitter ongoing Harris/Biden fight.
Pro-abortion Vice President Kamala Harris assembled a sizeable crowd on the Washington Ellipse where her “vision” for American was at cross purposes with her insistence that while former President Trump was “someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power,” a few paragraphs later Harris insisted “It is time to stop pointing fingers. We have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms.”
Okay.
Meanwhile, at the very same time Harris was clobbered Trump on 23 separate occasions (how’s that for “turning the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division”?), pro-abortion President Biden “was on camera for a Voto Latino get-out-the-vote Zoom call — under most circumstances, perhaps the least interesting place in the United States to be,” according to Jeffrey Blehar of National Review Online.
That would be bad enough. It just looks stupid that the Biden/Harris teams couldn’t make sure Biden’s Zoom call was not contemporaneous with Harris’s speech. Worse yet was Biden’s halting and ugly statement, as transcribed by Blehar:
Just the other day, a speaker at his [Trump’s] rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. Well, let me tell you something, I don’t—I don’t know, the Puerto Rican that I know, the Puerto Rico where I’m fr—in my home state of Delaware. They’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters”?
USA Today said this morning that “When speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Harris said she spoke with Biden after her speech on Tuesday but the two did not talk about his ‘garbage’ comment.”
Makes you kinda pine for Hillary’s 2016 “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” adding cheerfully, “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
And equally as unifying [and condescending] were Barack Obama’s remarks at a 2008 fundraising event in San Francisco talking about working-class voters in small towns. Remember those golden pearls about those “bitter folks” who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Do you sense more hatred or condescension? I’d say it’s a draw.
Here’s how the always neutral New York Times described what happened next:
Within minutes of the clip of Mr. Biden’s remarks going viral on social media on Tuesday night, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida addressed Mr. Trump’s rally in Allentown, Pa., and informed the crowd of Mr. Biden’s statement.
“I have breaking news for you, Mr. President — you may not have heard this,” Mr. Rubio told the audience after Mr. Trump had called him up to the stage and stood next to him. “Just moments ago, Joe Biden stated that our supporters are garbage — are garbage.”
Mr. Rubio added, as the crowd booed and Mr. Trump shook his head: “He’s talking about the Border Patrol. He’s talking about nurses. He’s talking about teachers. He’s talking about everyday Americans who love their country and want to dream big again and support you, Mr. President.”
Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman added
Mr. Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, who has been the former president’s most aggressive defender, posted on X about the remark, writing: “This is disgusting. Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country. There’s no excuse for this. I hope Americans reject it.”
And for good measure, Swan and Haberman [who has co-authored “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America”] wrote
Mr. Biden’s comment did not just give fodder to Mr. Trump to portray Mr. Biden as uninterested in those he represents; it gave the Trump campaign yet another opportunity to tightly tie Ms. Harris to the unpopular sitting president.
For his part, President Trump took the highroad [https://x.com/realDonaldTrump
While I am running a campaign of positive solutions to save America, Kamala Harris is running a campaign of hate. She has spent all week comparing her political opponents to the most evil mass murderers in history. Now, on top of everything, Joe Biden calls our supporters “garbage.” You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American People. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have shown they are both unfit to be President of the United States. I am proud to lead the biggest, broadest, and most important political coalition in American history. We are welcoming historic numbers of Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed. It is my desire to be the President of all the people.
More tomorrow.
