MILWAUKEE — Donald Trump’s campaign has shifted to plan for the possibility of Vice President Kamala Harris taking up the Democratic nomination in the event that President Biden drops out.
Trump adviser Brian Hughes first made the change in plan clear Wednesday, saying Trump’s VP pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), would not agree to a vice presidential debate against Harris until after the Democratic convention in August — because it’s unclear who will be on top of the Democrats’ ticket.
“We don’t know who the Democrat nominee for vice president is going to be, so we can’t lock in a date before their convention. To do so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate,” Hughes said in a statement.
A Trump adviser doubled down Thursday on the campaign’s view that Biden — who has been facing growing calls to abandon his re-election run after a disastrous debate performance and terrible polling numbers — will drop out.
“You’ve got the Democrats, who after three weeks still can’t decide whether or not Biden should run for re-election. You saw the statement yesterday. Why would we accept a vice presidential debate invitation when that party can’t even bring itself to decide that Kamala Harris is in fact the vice presidential candidate,” the Trump adviser said.
The adviser then argued that Harris is the “co-pilot of the Biden vision,” and that a switch to having her as the Democratic nominee would be a “good thing” for Trump because it could show the “disarray” of the party.
“So the Dems’ disarray is clear for us all to see. Beneficial? We’re running our campaign to save America. What the Dems can’t do is run on Biden-Harris’ record, and it is the Biden-Harris record. It is a wreck. You know, they’ve expressed that they’re a one-two punch,” the adviser said.
“So if they want to switch to Biden 2.0 and have Cackling Kamala at the top of the ticket? We’re good either way, like what the American people see in Biden-Harris Democrat Party is disarray in their own party, and that’s reflective of the disarray that they put this country in for three and a half years’ disarray and foreign policy across the globe.”
Biden said in an interview published Wednesday he would drop out if a doctor diagnosed him with a “medical condition.”
The Biden campaign has insisted that it is not eyeing the possibility of the president not being on top of the ticket.