In the months leading up to President Biden’s devastating performance in last month’s debate and his subsequent decision to suspend his reelection campaign on Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris made several efforts to affirm and defend her mental acuity, according to a new analysis by Fox News Digital.
Questions about Biden’s mental capacity have surfaced frequently since the fall of 2023, when the president made recurring comments at public events that raised concerns about his physical condition ahead of an election year. The president is 81 and would have turned 86 at the end of a second term.
Harris suggested that “what's on his birth certificate in terms of his age” is not “the measure of the man,” when asked about Biden's age in a Sirius XM interview in November 2023.
“Let's not get distracted. Let's see if we have a president who has actually delivered on his commitments and especially on the long-standing issues that needed to be addressed,” Harris said. “Joe Biden has done that. That's the measure of the man. Not what's on his birth certificate in terms of his age.”
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President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the Truman Balcony of the White House in Washington, DC, Thursday, July 4, 2024. (Tierney L. Cruz)
Biden announced Sunday that he was suspending his reelection campaign after several weeks of mounting pressure from party members. He later published a separate post endorsing Harris as his successor and asking for donations.
Harris quickly accepted his endorsement and announced her intention to win the Democratic nomination in a statement. “I am honored to have the president's endorsement and I intend to win this nomination,” she said. “We have 107 days until Election Day. Together we will fight. And together, we will win.”
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Following several gaffes in 2023 (including Biden's fall at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony in June, referring to the Grand Canyon as one of the “nine” wonders of the world in August and claiming he was at Ground Zero the day after 9/11 in September despite records showing he was in Washington, D.C., that day), Harris was asked whether the president's age is a concern.
“I would say that age is more of a chronological fact,” Harris said in an interview for the New York Times' Dealbook Summit in November 2023, adding that she is “absolutely authoritative” during her meetings.
The vice president also said in January that “we have to get over” the question of the president's age.
“So this whole issue that they're bringing up about their age is, again, because they have nothing to run on,” Harris said during a one-on-one interview with Katie Couric on her podcast, “Next Question with Katie Couric,” on iHeartRadio. “And I think we have to get past this, because I think ultimately what the American people deserve is for their leaders to act on solutions and improve their living conditions.”
Harris confirmed her intention to win the Democratic nomination. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye)
ABC News later asked Harris, 59, about concerns about Biden's suitability for the job.
“I will tell you that the reality is, and I've spent a lot of time with Biden, whether it's in the Oval Office, the Situation Room and other places, he's extraordinarily smart. He has the ability to see around the corner in terms of what the challenges might be that we face as a nation or globally,” Harris told the outlet in January.
When special counsel Robert Hur described Biden as a “well-intentioned, sympathetic older man with a short memory” in a report investigating his handling of classified documents, Harris came to Biden's defense, calling him a disingenuous person.
“So the way the president's conduct was characterized in that report could not be more factually wrong and clearly politically motivated, gratuitous,” Harris said of the report at a meeting of community violence intervention leaders in February.
President Biden looks on as he participates in the first presidential debate of the 2024 election with former President Trump at CNN studios in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP)
Just minutes after the June 27 debate concluded, Harris appeared on CNN to defend the president's performance that was already causing a frenzy within the Democratic Party.
When pressed about concerns about Biden's debate performance in the post-debate interview, the vice president attempted to spin the issue with former President Trump, saying the president got off to a “slow start,” but that the debate should not be compared to Biden's three-and-a-half years of “performance” as president.
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“Last night, President Joe Biden and Donald Trump had their first debate, and earlier today the president himself said it wasn't his best performance,” Harris told voters in Las Vegas after the debate. “This race will not be decided on a June night.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Harris for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
