Beshear for VP? Governor is ‘flattered’ by discussions of Harris-Beshear ticket

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The national media cycle continues to churn through reaction to Democratic President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance last week.

And Tuesday night, in a high-profile interview on CNN, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear waded into the discussion.

Appearing opposite Pamela Brown, a Kentucky native and daughter of late governor John Y. Brown, Jr., Beshear was honest in his negative evaluation of Biden’s debate night and did not recoil from talks of Beshear becoming the vice presidential nominee alongside current Vice President Kamala Harris if she were to replace Biden on the ticket this year.

“I think we’ve all got to be upfront and honest that what we saw in the debate, it was rough. It’s a rough night. and regardless of polls that you see, it’s going to hurt the campaign,” Beshear said.

Beshear couched his comments in praise of the president’s administration, in particular his involvement in getting funding for the Brent Spence Bridge, a key commercial and traffic vein connecting Kentucky and Ohio.

But in the lead-up to a planned meeting of Democratic governors with the president Wednesday, Beshear was frank in his concern following a debate performance that saw Biden, 81, sometimes trail off and struggle to speak coherently.

The governor deferred questions on whether or not Biden ought to run again, saying the “decision on continuing or not will fall to him and his family,” but Beshear did preview some of the questions he and his colleagues might ask.

“I don’t think it’s an attack on the White House or an attack on the President, who is a good man and a nice man, to just say, ‘tell us a little bit more about how you’re doing,’” Beshear said. “I think the American people would respond positively to it, and the President has formed a relationship of empathy and of direct communication to the American people.

“So I think it will be a wise decision in whatever way they would choose to just address it directly.”

Though the comments from Beshear that drew the most interest and scrutiny from national media related to Biden’s campaign, the governor also used his nine-minute interview to message against former President Donald Trump, 78, turning concerns over Biden’s age into a comparison between the two candidates as grandparents.

“If you’ve got two separate grandparents that you can leave your kids with — one is kind and has been good to them, maybe stiffer, may have had a bad debate, and one is angry and talks about getting revenge on people — who are you going to trust your kids with? Should we entrust the country with any less,” Beshear asked.

Trump, he said, also bears responsibility for near-total abortion bans being enacted that don’t provide rape or incest exceptions, such as the current ban in Kentucky.

Beshear has routinely skewered that aspect of the state’s ban, which has yet to change since going into effect post-Dobbs in 2022, and made opposition to it a central plank in his successful re-election platform last year.

The governor’s live interview came as a building chorus of media figures as well as a handful of Democrats are discussing the possibility of, or even calling for, Biden to withdraw from the race. If that were to happen, it would seem that Vice President Kamala Harris would be first among the many Democrats looking to step up.

Beshear’s popularity on a national scale has been put to test at least once. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday, about 70% of Democrats haven’t heard of the governor, but he only trails Trump by four percentage points, finishing with 36% of the country’s support compared to 40% for Trump in the poll.

During the interview, Brown said that Harris’ allies are floating Beshear as a vice presidential candidate with whom she’d pair well.

Beshear said he didn’t want to speculate, but highlighted his “good relationship” with Harris. Recently, he attended an event with her on medical marijuana at the White House. He said that his name being tossed around in that context is a reflection of the state’s positive trajectory.

“While it’s nice to hear your name and things like that, I’m just proud of what we have done as a state, and the President and the Vice President have been very helpful in making a lot of that happen,” Beshear said.

Beshear and other Democratic governors will meet with Biden Wednesday amid all the chatter surrounding his fitness to win this year’s race and remain president for another four years. Beshear will attend in-person, his team confirmed to the Herald-Leader.

What will that conversation look like? Beshear gave a preview.

“I think the governors just want a direct and candid conversation with the President. We want to make sure he’s doing okay,” he said. “I think we also want to talk about strategy. When governors get out there, we put our own credibility and brands on the line. We are more directly connected to the voters in our area than many other elected officials who maybe have to go to Washington a lot of the week. We’re here every day.

“I think that governors want to be helpful, just want to make sure when they’re talking one-on-one, with people in our communities that we are giving them accurate and reliable information.”