More than once in the past week, the White House has had to “clarify” comments made by Kamala Harris.
White House clarifications are hardly anything new. The Obama White House had to explain Joe Biden’s remarks on more than one occasion, and Lord knows the Biden White House has had to clarify the president’s words over the past eleven months. But in the last week, the White House has had to scramble to clarify statements made by Kamala Harris. And she’s the young, sharp one.
Earlier this week, she was asked by the Wall Street Journal whether she believed Biden would seek reelection. She didn’t say unequivocally that he was.
“I’ll be very honest: I don’t think about it, nor have we talked about it,” she said. “I’m not going to talk about our conversations, but I will tell you this without any ambiguity: We do not talk about nor have we talked about reelection, because we haven’t completed our first year and we’re in the middle of a pandemic.”
Harris’s words didn’t go unnoticed by the press.
“She didn’t say yes. She just said that the two of them hadn’t talked about it.” ABC News senior White House correspondent Mary K. Bruce noted Thursday at the White House press briefing. “Of course, you all and the president himself has said that he does plan to seek reelection. So what’s the disconnect here?”
“I can’t speak to a conversation that the vice president and the president have,” Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “I could only say what and reiterate what [Press Secretary Jen Psaki] has said and what the President has said himself: That he is planning to run for reelection in 2024.”
The Biden administration has had enough problems with media speculation about Biden’s 2024 plans; the last thing they needed was Kamala Harris adding fuel to the fire by failing to parrot the White House line that Biden has every intention of running.
Related: White House Scrambles to Defend Kamala’s Honor
On Saturday, the White House was again forced to clarify comments that Harris made to the Los Angeles Times. “We didn’t see delta coming. I think most scientists did not — upon whose advice and direction we have relied — didn’t see delta coming,” Harris said. “We didn’t see omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants.”
Did the Biden administration need their own vice president to imply that they were blindsided? While we conservative pundits have been pointing out the administration’s incompetence since day one, I’m sure they didn’t expect Harris to give us more fodder.
“The Vice President’s comments referred to the exact kind of mutation,” a Harris adviser said in a statement obtained by Fox News on Saturday. “The administration knew mutations were possible, it [is] the reason we ordered extra tests, extra gear and extra PPE.”
It’s curious that Kamala Harris, who is reportedly not happy with the role she’s been playing as vice president, is making amateurish mistakes in her public statements and forcing the White House to clean up her mess. Is something going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about? Kamala’s allies believe Joe Biden set her up to fail with “trash” assignments like the border crisis and election reform, and last month there were rumors of a potential vice-presidential vacancy. Does Kamala suspect she’s being forced out, and is responding by going rogue?