Panelists on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday agreed that Vice President Kamala Harris is not positioned to be “next in line” for the Democratic nomination for president in 2024 if President Joe Biden decides not to run for reelection.
In the segment, host George Stephanopoulos discussed President Biden’s 2024 presidential run with Democracy for America CEO Yvette Simpson and ABC’s chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl. The panel discussed if Harris would be the Democratic nominee in the event that Biden does not run again in 2024.
"You don't say Kamala Harris is the heir apparent?" Stephanopoulos asked.
“She should be. I don’t know if she’s been positioned to do that. She should have been positioned powerfully, and able to actually be a person that could lead, and she’s been in the back,” Simpson replied.
"She's powerful, she's young, she's able to get the energy, but we have not seen her strong and I don't know why the Biden administration didn't position her that way,” Simpson added. “It has to be her because it would be an outrage to skip over the vice president, especially the first African American and Asian female vice president. But, they’ve [Democrats] got to do a lot of work to get her in the seat so that we can see her powerful.”
Simpson continued, saying that Democrats should focus on putting Harris in a position where she is more powerful. She added that Biden should not run for reelection in 2024.
“That should be the work that we should be doing right now, not holding together with patches of Biden who is definitely battered, has not kept the promises he made on bipartisanship and getting the kind of work done that he said he was going to do,” she said.
ABC’s Jonathan Karl chimed in, saying that Democrats feel uneasy about Biden running for reelection in 2024.
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“You talk to Democrats privately, key Democrats on Capitol Hill, leaders in the party, and there is just trepidation about this. There is a sense among many of them that he shouldn’t run. And also, a sense that if he doesn’t run, that the primary is wide open and it’s not just Kamala Harris’ to take,” Karl said.
Townhall covered how Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refused to say if she would endorse Biden in 2024 in a recent interview on CNN’s State of the Union.
“I just want to ask about President Biden, he is saying he’s going to run again in 2024. Will you support him?” Dana Bash asked AOC.
“If the president chooses to run again in 2024, I mean, first of all, in focused on winning this majority [in 2022] right now,” AOC answered. She deviated from Bash’s question, saying “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“I think if the president has a vision and that’s something, certainly, we’re all willing to entertain and examine when the time comes,” AOC added.
“That’s not a yes,” Bash replied.
“I think we should endorse when we get to it, but I believe that the president’s been doing a very good job so far. And, should he run again? I think that we’ll take a look at it,” AOC said. “Right now, I think we need to focus on winning a majority instead of a presidential election.”
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