ABC’s Mary Bruce found the time and opportunity to conduct additional apple-polishing for the Biden White House. While on the campaign trail in South Carolina, she chastised Vice President Kamala Harris over the Biden campaign’s apparent unwillingness to…attack Donald Trump?
Watch as Bruce expresses her dissatisfaction at Team Biden’s lack of aggressiveness, asking Harris, “what are you waiting for”?
MARY BRUCE: Both Biden and Harris face negative approval ratings. And though some recent battleground state polls show Harris actually outperforming Biden in hypothetical matchups against Trump, both come up short to the former president. Harris however, remains confident they will win this race.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: If it is Donald Trump, we've beat him before and we'll beat him again.
BRUCE: But that confidence has even some top Democrats concerned, urging the campaign to be more aggressive.
BRUCE: Why not go out and attack Donald Trump- go after his legal challenges? What are you guys waiting for?
HARRIS: Well, let me just tell you something. I am of the school that you either run without an opponent or you run scared. I have learned that to be a fact, and that is the way that I feel about any election. So absolutely not. You can't take anything for granted, and we have a duty, a responsibility to earn this re-elect.
This entire interview, a comedy in three acts, is an exercise in attempting to coax the Biden campaign into addressing the core concerns of some of their key constituencies, chief among them, the media.
First, Bruce opens with the age question. This is, of course, done in order to elicit some variant of the “Biden’s age is an asset” narrative that’s been recently rolled out. Harris’ response before getting cut off:
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: He is extraordinarily smart. He has the ability to see around the corner in terms of what might be the challenges we face as a nation or globally…
A journalist in this position might have asked what Biden thought he saw around the corner when unraveling the southern border. Alas, Bruce lamented that voters aren’t really buying this line.
Bruce then pivots to abortion before honing in on Biden’s bad approval ratings, which is framed as a “struggle to sell their accomplishments”. As our very own Tim Graham notes: this is how you can tell a reporter is a Democrat, and there was no such acknowledgement of “struggle to sell” when Trump was in office. “Struggle” implies that some heretofore unknown external force is hindering Biden’s approval from soaring to the stratosphere, as opposed to what we see with our very own eyes along the border- which went strangely unmentioned throughout this interview.
And it is here where Bruce knocks Harris for not being aggressive enough. You will notice in the video we clipped for you that Bruce hides her campaign cheerleading behind the concerns of “top Democrats”. This is what enables her to openly offer campaign advice, that Biden-Harris attack Trump over his “legal challenges”, as a both question and impatient exhortation. “What are you guys waiting for”?
Given both the media's role in furthering the Biden campaign and the Biden White House’s actual conduct of lawfare against Donald Trump, the question seemed weird. What else is the campaign supposed to do to aggressively push that message? And furthermore, as Graham points out, that’s the media’s role.
Most tellingly, the interview ended with a rambling non-answer on Biden’s decline with black voters, and no follow-up.
This was less an interview than an exercise in campaign communications delivered by state media.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on ABC News’ This Week on Sunday, January 21st, 2024:
MARTHA RADDATZ: The Biden team is hitting the campaign trail as the president faces low approval ratings, and questions from voters on whether he's up for another term. So this week our chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce took those questions to Vice President Kamala Harris.
MARY BRUCE: At 81 years old already, and hoping for another four years, voter concern about president Joe Biden's age and fitness for office is growing. We asked Vice President Kamala Harris about that when we spent the day with her in the first Democratic primary state of South Carolina. She brushed it off and defended her running mate's mental sharpness.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I spent a lot of time with president Biden, be it in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room, and other places. He is extraordinarily smart. He has the ability to see around the corner in terms of what might be the challenges we face as a nation or globally…
MARY BRUCE: But it doesn't seem that that's getting out and resonating with Americans, with a lot of your supporters.
HARRIS. Well. I mean, listen. You’ve- you're here with me in South Carolina. You saw every room we went in. The numbers of people who are there, applauding quite loudly. They're there because they believe in what we're doing and they want to see us continue to do this work.
BRUCE: But some Republicans are trying to make the not-so-subtle case that Biden may not make it through the next four years, and that their real opponent in 2024 is the vice president.
NIKKI HALEY: We cannot afford a President Kamala Harris. We won't survive it.
BRUCE: As Donald Trump barrels towards the GOP nomination, Harris has been ramping up her presence on the campaign trail, by our count, visiting at least 18 states in just the last six months. She's taking a leading role on issues like voting rights and abortion.
HARRIS: In this Year of Our Lord 2024, the government should not be telling women what to do with their bodies.
BRUCE: Both Biden and Harris face negative approval ratings. And though some recent battleground state polls show Harris actually outperforming Biden in hypothetical matchups against Trump, both come up short to the former president. Harris however, remains confident they will win this race.
HARRIS: If it is Donald Trump, we've beat him before and we'll beat him again.
BRUCE: But that confidence has even some top Democrats concerned, urging the campaign to be more aggressive.
BRUCE: Why not go out and attack Donald Trump- go after his legal challenges? What are you guys waiting for?
HARRIS: Well, let me just tell you something. I am of the school that you either run without an opponent or you run scared. I have learned that to be a fact, and that is the way that I feel about any election. So absolutely not. You can't take anything for granted, and we have a duty, a responsibility to earn this re-elect.
BRUCE: Polling shows Biden and Harris are struggling to sell their accomplishments to the American people. Congressman Jim Clyburn, whose support in South Carolina resuscitated Biden's 2020 campaign, says he's especially concerned about their standing with black voters.
How concerned are you that this key constituency may sit this one out?
HARRIS: You got to earn the votes. And the votes are going to be earned based on one, in a re-ect, have you actually responded to the needs of the community? We have a responsibility to communicate. We've done really good work, our challenge will be to let people know who brung it to’em.
RADDATZ: Our thanks to Mary for that.
