Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event in Las Vegas Friday, Jun 28, 2024.
Friday, June 28, 2024 | 1:16 p.m.
Vice President Kamala Harris came to the defense of President Joe Biden during a campaign appearance in Las Vegas on Friday, admitting his debate performance Thursday against former President Donald Trump faltered but saying it wasn’t indicative of the president’s potential second term.
“We’ve got 130 days, I’m counting, 130 days,” Harris said. “This race will not be decided by one night in June.”
Biden admitted in a campaign event simultaneously held Friday in North Carolina that he doesn’t debate “as well” as he used to, and that sentiment was briefly echoed by Harris. She spoke for about 10 minutes in the early afternoon at the East Las Vegas Community Center.
“For all the punditry last night, our president made clear there is a contrast between someone who lies and someone who leads,” Harris said.
That’s something Trump isn’t disguising, Harris said, referencing an appearance here earlier this month when Trump jokingly said, “I don’t care about you, I just want your vote.”
“That’s about the only thing he said lately that rings true,” Harris said.
Other speakers during the campaign event largely avoided mentions of the debate, but the one mention — made by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev. — took aim at the many false claims Trump spewed during the 90-minute debate.
Fact-checkers for Biden’s reelection campaign said they counted “50 lies” told by Trump during the debate, touching everything from immigration to the war in Ukraine.
“Here’s what I know: Donald Trump couldn’t pass a polygraph three minutes into that,” Cortez Masto said.
At one point, the crowd broke into a chant of “lock him up,” referring to president Trump’s conviction in New York on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
“Folks, all we have to do is vote,” Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said in response to the chant. “Don’t forget, this election is going to be close.”
UNLV professor Ivet Aldaba spoke alongside her mother about health care costs, showing the crowd a 2022 receipt for her mother’s insulin, which cost over $2,000. She highlighted the Biden administration’s 2023 Inflation Reduction Act creating a $35 cap for seniors’ insulin prescriptions.
Harris said she sees Biden beyond “when cameras are on” and stressed that he is a strong speaker and negotiator, especially between foreign leaders.
The vice president finished her short speech by firing off the administration’s achievements and calling on attendees to decide between a country of law or a country of “chaos, fear and hate.”
There were no immediate signs of organized efforts among donors, his campaign leadership or the Democratic National Committee to convince the president to step aside, according to interviews with several people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive conversations.
Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said there had been no internal conversations “whatsoever” about Biden stepping aside, though he, too, acknowledged that the president had a “bad night” on stage.
“Joe Biden’s the nominee,” he insisted.
Biden appeared to acknowledge the criticism during a rally in Raleigh, N.C., saying “I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.”
Speaking for 18 minutes, Biden appeared far more animated than his showing the night before, and he excoriated Trump for his “lies” and campaign aimed at “revenge and retribution.”
“The choice in this election is simple,” Biden said. “Donald Trump will destroy our democracy. I will defend it.”
He added, alluding to his candidacy, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.”
Even before the debate, Biden’s age had been a liability with voters, and Thursday night’s faceoff appeared to reinforce the public’s deep-seated concerns before perhaps the largest audience he will garner in the four months until Election Day.
Privately, his campaign had spent the previous hours working to tamp down concerns and keep donors and surrogates on board.
Democratic lawmakers on Friday acknowledged Biden’s poor showing, but tried to stop talk of replacing him as their standard-bearer, and instead tried to shift the focus onto Trump’s attacks and falsehoods that they hoped would remind voters of the daily turbulence of his presidency.
Former President Barack Obama backed up his former vice president, posting on X that “Bad debate nights happen.” Alluding to his own poor showing in the first debate of his reelection campaign in 2012, Obama continued, “Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”
He added: “Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November.”
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries answered with a flat “no” when asked Friday if Biden should step aside.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said he could hardly sleep because of the number of telephone calls he got after Biden performed “horribly” in the debate.
“People were just concerned. And I told everybody being concerned is healthy, overreacting is dangerous,” Cleaver said. “And I think I wouldn’t advise anybody to make rash decisions right now.”
Rep. James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat whose support in that state helped Biden secure the Democratic nomination four years ago, said he would likely speak to Biden later Friday and his message would be simple: “Stay the course.”
Biden and his team have long wagered that voters would look past their concerns about his age and unpopularity when confronted at the ballot box by a choice between the president or Trump. Despite their concerns about Biden’s performance, they sought to find solace in Trump doing little to expand his own appeal to voters on Thursday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.