Harris ‘squarely’ a campaign issue after Biden special counsel report: Republican strategist
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Republican strategist Scott Jennings said Vice President Harris is now “squarely” a campaign issue, in the wake of a special counsel report on President Biden’s retention of classified documents released Thursday.
“I would say — and I don’t know how many people on this panel believe it — there aren’t too many Americans who are going to look at this and say, ‘This guy is up to serving for five more years as president of the United States,’” Jennings said on CNN’s “NewsNight” in a clip first highlighted by Mediaite.
“I think Vice President Harris became, squarely, an issue in this election today,” Jennings continued. “She already was getting there, and now, it’s even more important.”
Harris has a 40 percent approval rating, as of late January, according to a Los Angeles Times tracker of polls on her favorability. In an NBC News poll last summer, her approval was only 31 percent, a record low for vice presidents.
The report from special counsel Robert Hur, released Thursday, concluded no charges should be brought against the president, but it noted Biden had problems with memory and recall.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote.
“Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Biden hit back at the report in a fiery press conference Thursday night, defending his memory and mental capability.
“My memory’s fine. … Take a look at what I’ve done since I became president. … How did that happen? I guess I just forgot what was going on,” he said.
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