Biden teases Kamala Harris ‘could be president of the United States’ in Trump-bashing NAACP speech
LAS VEGAS — President Biden said Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris “could be president of the United States” while addressing the NAACP’s annual convention — as fellow Democrats try to convince him to step aside ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
“She’s not only a great vice president, she could be president of the United States,” the 81-year-old chief executive said of Harris, 59, who would be best positioned to replace him if he decides to retire.
Biden gave no indication, however, that he would do so — telling the crowd that he had a plan for the first 100 days of a second term, including signing voting rights legislation “come hell or high water.”
The incumbent repeatedly attacked Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in his remarks — despite calling on Americans to “lower the temperature” of the campaign in a rare Oval Office address Sunday, after Trump, 78, was wounded Saturday in an assassination attempt.
“Donald Trump’s presidency was hell for black America,” Biden exclaimed at one point.
“What the hell’s the matter with this man?” Biden said at another point, recounting how the National Guard responded to protests and riots in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd.
Trump is “lying like hell” about their respective black unemployment records, the president also said — ridiculing Trump’s focus on growing “black jobs.”
“I love this phrase, ‘black jobs,’ tells us a lot about the man and about his character,” Biden jabbed.
“Folks, I know what a black job is. It’s the vice president of the United States. I know what a black job is: the first black president in American history, Barack Obama.”
Biden also trumpeted his naming of Lloyd Austin as the first black defense secretary and Ketanji Brown Jackson to be the first black woman on the Supreme Court.
Trump is “a guy who spread the birthism lie about Barack Obama, saying he wasn’t born in America and he wasn’t a US citizen,” Biden said.
The president said Republicans would “undo everything the NAACP stands for.”
While the president said in a Sunday night Oval Office address that “we all have a responsibility” to use more measured language in the campaign after Trump was shot, he defended tossing acrid barbs at Trump and newly minted GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance of Ohio less than 48 hours later.
“Just because we must lower the temperature in politics … doesn’t mean you should stop telling the truth,” Biden said.
The president also said the “truth” about the ex-prez was “he tried to kill Obamacare” that brought health insurance “to millions of black families,” instead offering a $2 trillion tax cut to billionaires.
Biden’s comments were well received by the NAACP crowd, which heard from a string of black Biden administration officials — acting Housing and Urban Development Secretary Adrianne Todman, assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clark and special assistant Stephen K. Benjamin, former mayor of Columbia, South Carolina.
Benjamin summoned press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to the stage, but she did not speak, only waving to the applauding crowd.
NAACP president Derrick Johnson, in introducing the president, lauded the Biden administration’s accomplishments, and derided the Heritage Foundation’s proposed “Project 2025” agenda — which neither the GOP nor Trump have officially adopted — as “a 900-page manifesto that seeks to undermine progress [and] inflict harm on our community.”
The civil rights organization, Johnson asserted, is “non-partisan but we are political as hell” and focuses on policies, not individuals.
Biden also slammed the “Project 2025” document, although he first called it “Project 2024” and also the “Program on 2025.” The president also stumbled on his proposal to curb rent hikes on corporate-owned rental homes, first saying such increases would be limited to $55, but later correcting himself to say there would be 5% limit.
Democrats plan to nominate Biden virtually as early as this month — ahead of the Aug. 19-22 Democratic convention — though congressional dissenters are expected to mount a fresh push to convince the oldest-ever sitting president to stand down following his disastrous June 27 debate performance.
So far, 20 House Democrats and one Democratic senator have publicly asked Biden to do so, citing concerns about his cognitive fitness.
