Democrat California Sen. Adam Schiff said Sunday on NBC News Sunday that former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election to President Donald Trump due to being a “status quo” candidate.
Despite polls showing a tight race between Harris and Trump in 2024, the president won both the Electoral College and the popular vote for Republicans, leading Democrats to question their mistakes. While on “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker began by bringing up a new book by author Chris Whipple in which it is alleged how Biden had repeatedly been “struggling to focus” before withdrawing from the race.
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“Do you think that former President Biden’s advisers misled the American people about his capacities?” Welker asked.
“You know, it’s hard for me to gauge what they’re the closest advisers to the president were seeing at the time, ” Schiff responded. “I can only speak to the interactions that I had with him, which were, you know, in the months leading up to his getting out of the race, largely ceremonial occasions. But, you know, I will say this. He made the decision to get out of the race. I think that was the right decision.”
Biden withdrew from the presidential race on July 21, 2024, after mounting pressure from his party, including a public call out from Schiff, and donors following his disastrous debate against Trump. However, before the former president’s callouts, Biden’s White House staff and Democrat lawmakers attempted to downplay Republicans’ concerns while defending Biden’s mental fitness.
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Schiff then pivoted to discussing Harris’ campaign, stating that despite a “great” attempt, she couldn’t “run away” from the existing conditions she faced as a candidate.
“But, you know, I will say this. He made the decision to get out of the race. I think that was the right decision,” Schiff continued. “The vice president as the vice president, I think, ran a great campaign, but could not run away from being a representative of the status quo.”
“The fact is that people are hurting and have been hurting for a long time. This is a frankly decades in the making problem where people are working harder than ever and still can’t get by,” Schiff said.
Schiff then criticized Trump’s economic decisions, stating that Democrats will have to “grapple with some of the central challenges, structural challenges in our economy.”
“I think the failure of Democrats to do that in the past resulted in our losing the White House. The catastrophic damage they’re doing to the economy now is going to cause Trump and Republicans to lose Congress. But both parties are going to have to tackle this global challenge to our economy,” Schiff said.
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During her run for president, Harris was repeatedly criticized for her apparent avoidance of in-depth interviews, especially regarding her flip-flops on a handful of left-leaning policies she had once supported prior to 2020.
While Harris failed to answer basic questions on how she would address the U.S.’s top voter concerns like the economy, inflation and immigration, fellow party lawmakers like Schiff defended her. Before Harris’ debate against Trump, Schiff told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki that the former vice president’s biggest challenge could be “knowing the facts too well,” limiting her ability to use a “broader vision” against Trump.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
