Baier on Kamala Harris: Biden knows the VP job better than anyone
Bret Baier reacts to Kamala Harris being named Joe Biden's pick for vice president.
For weeks, and some would say for too long, we’ve been hearing about presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s top picks for vice president on his ticket for this November’s election. But now, after increasing nastiness ensued in the final phase of Biden’s search, the clear winner, and his clear favorite is Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.
Now for some, on both the right and the left, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice was not their favorite.
But for many Democrats, whose main (and for some only) goal is to make Donald Trump a one-term president, they’re just happy he’s finally made a decision. As one person on Twitter put it weeks before Biden had made his final selection: “I love Biden’s VP Pick! Whoever she is!”
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So below I’ll break down the good, the bad and the ugly of Joe Biden’s vice-presidential pick.
THE GOOD
The California senator comes from two immigrant parents: her mother, born in India and her father, born in Jamaica. She is a smart and charismatic Black woman, and in addition to having high name recognition, she’s also a forceful and compelling presence in the Senate — the only Black woman serving in the Senate.
And although she didn’t snatch the Democratic nomination for president, Harris is qualified to serve as president, which is attractive to Democrats who feel that Biden might only serve one term.
Her politics are such that it will not weaken her party’s overall position or greatly anger the more progressive wing of the party.
She’s a strong debater, as she has shown with Biden himself, and will most certainly be a force to reckon with debating Vice President Mike Pence. She debates like the prosecutor she is and uses her skills quite successfully, as we have seen from her questioning witnesses and nominees as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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THE BAD
Harris is viewed by some as a California Democrat with a law enforcement resume. With Trump’s “law and order” mantra, that could work against her, especially in the Black community.
Her background as San Francisco District Attorney and California Attorney General, roles in which she fought to keep people in prison after they were proved innocent, defended the California death penalty system, and resisted investigating certain police shootings, could hurt both her and the ticket, especially during a time when the “defund the police” movement is quite popular in the Democratic party.
In short, some do not feel that Harris is the progressive prosecutor she pretends to be, and many on the far left do not feel she’s progressive enough.
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THE UGLY
One thing about Harris’s past that Trump and the right are almost certain to focus on is her past relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Back in the mid-90s when Harris was a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, she was in a relationship with Brown, who was married (although estranged from his wife for over a decade).
While dating, Brown not only gave her a car but appointed her to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and then to the Medical Assistance Commission, positions that paid more than $400,000 over five years. Brown himself doesn’t help having been associated with Harris, as he was investigated multiple times by the FBI.
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The bottom line is, for those that already plan to vote for Biden, they’ll support his choice of Harris and support the ticket. For those on who support Trump, they’ll demonize her and won’t vote for Biden; although they never had planned to.
But for some of those voters on the fence, who were hoping for a female vice-presidential pick or a person of color, this might just excite them enough to vote for Biden in November. And I, as a Democrat, am hoping that will happen.
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