Thursday was an absolutely wild day for President Joe Biden. News brook that Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to charge him for mishandling classified files, given that he was too old. Biden only made that worse with a press conference on Thursday night during which he yelled at the press for daring to ask questions about his memory. He even mixed up world leaders, yet again, referring to Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the President of Mexico. It's no wonder that "President Harris" was trending. It doesn't help that earlier in the day, Biden's official account had posted a rather random, glowing post about Vice President Kamala Harris.
"We are so fortunate to have a real leader, a true friend, and a historic Vice President in Kamala Harris," the post read. "We couldn’t do this without you, Kamala."
Just over 12 hours later, there were 11,000 replies and close to 2,000 quoted reposts, far more than the president's other posts received, as users mocked the president at length.
We are so fortunate to have a real leader, a true friend, and a historic Vice President in Kamala Harris.
— President Biden (@POTUS) February 8, 2024
We couldn’t do this without you, Kamala. pic.twitter.com/WbZAACWuye
Ah, now this otherwise inexplicable tweet makes sense. https://t.co/mHjusF5TcG
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 8, 2024
the timing of this tweet is actually insane https://t.co/Ef7LjYxvUF
— kira 👾 (@kirawontmiss) February 8, 2024
Get ready for the Kamala swap out at the convention https://t.co/567Wm3Y95f
— Polling USA (@USA_Polling) February 9, 2024
they're soft launching her https://t.co/DsHtPHIKDE
— vo (@vanillaopinions) February 8, 2024
The likely explanation for such a post is that whoever writes Biden's posts--we know it's not always him, if it ever is--is looking to give Harris a much-needed boost. As bad as Biden's polling numbers are, hers are worse. NBC News polling has had her as the least popular vice president since they started polling on the issue.
Remember when the first few months of Biden's presidency that reports were already coming out about how much of a difficult boss Harris was? In December of 2021, staffer David Gins put out a post that came across as a hostage video about how much he enjoyed working for the vice president.
This sounds very much like one of those posts, another hostage negotiation post.
Hi. My name is David Gins. I work for Vice President Harris on behalf of the American people as Deputy Director for Operations and absolutely love my job.
— David Gins (@davidmgins) December 5, 2021
Just thought some of you should know 😀 pic.twitter.com/VPuYv9bpbp
In retrospect, perhaps this is some sort of hostage situation https://t.co/h40rbZhgjy
— Emily Zanotti 🦝 (@emzanotti) February 9, 2024
Biden's still insisting he's running for reelection, but there's already been talk about how he'll be replaced. Democrats can't afford to drop Harris, though, and replace her with a white man like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, especially as she's already the first woman vice president and would be the first woman president as well. Sure enough, "Michelle Obama" has also been trending.
It's entirely possible, though, that Biden won't be the nominee, that the pressure will finally get through to him to let someone else run instead. Someone may even invoke the 25th Amendment, an idea that was also trending on Thursday and Friday morning, and they're trying to get people to come around to the idea of actually liking such an unlikable figure as Harris.
Even if Biden somehow still makes it to running in November, Harris is still his running mate, and could very well end up taking over as president despite calls to drop her. Democrats would to have to not just sell Biden, then, as old and feeble as he is, but the unpopular Harris.
"Here's what we do, Joe. You go out and give a press conference to clean this up. Take questions, too." pic.twitter.com/ZEbTSFbUDX
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) February 9, 2024
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