Tipsheet

Kamala Harris Leans Into Another Biden Gaffe

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  July 16, 2024 2:15 PM

On Sunday, as he was addressing the nation following the assassination attempt against former and potentially future President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden experienced several more gaffes. Perhaps most memorable is that when he meant to say "We resolve our differences at the ballot box," he ended up saying "battle box," earning strong criticism for such a flub. And yet Vice President Kamala Harris actually leaned into such a move with a post made from her official account and reposted by her political account.

"As President Biden said in the Oval Office last night: Politics must be an arena for peaceful debate and to make decisions guided by the will of the people. We must stand for an America of decency and grace," Harris' post from Monday also read. 

Despite such calls for "decency," which Biden can't even properly communicate, the president and his fellow Democrats have engaged in plenty of inflammatory rhetoric against Trump and Republicans. Biden was even confronted about it during an interview with NBC News' Lester Holt that aired at the same time as the first night of the RNC in Milwaukee. He denied it repeatedly and vehemently, claiming it was Trump who was the problem. 

This comes after Biden had made remarks just days before the shooting such as "It's time to put Trump in a bullseye."

"Most importantly, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, Trump is a threat to this nation," Biden also said to applause just last Friday at a campaign event in Michigan, after having made similar remarks in weeks prior while at a campaign event in North Carolina.

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With the announcement of Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) as Trump's running mate, the Biden team also looks to be further ratcheting up this narrative that Trump and now Vance are a supposed threat to democracy. 

Biden has not just been engaging in such rhetoric for weeks, but for years now.

As White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also indicated during Monday's press briefing, it doesn't look like we'll see a change from the president when it comes to his rhetoric.

The White House is prone to having to edit and correct Biden's remarks in the official transcripts. With the edit made to Sunday's remarks, the transcript corrects it to say "[ballot] box," but also claims Biden had actually said "battol box," even though there is no such term.

As Matt covered on Monday, NBC News also tried to edit Biden's remarks as they quoted the president. 

This isn't the first time that part of the Biden-Harris ticket has actually capitalized on such a gaffe. Last Thursday, Biden gave a press conference following the NATO summit. When taking the very first question, he referred to Harris as "Vice President Trump," and then his political account still claimed in a post the following morning that he knows who Harris is, and then proceeded to go after Trump.