The spotlight is on Vice President Kamala Harris as a special counsel report released Thursday has further cast doubts on President Joe Biden’s mental acuity.
Special counsel Robert Hur described how Biden mishandled classified materials while painting the 81-year-old president as forgetful in interviews. Hur said that during interviews at the White House, Biden couldn’t recall when his time serving as former President Barack Obama’s vice president ended.
Scott Jennings, a conservative commentator for CNN, said Harris would likely be under the microscope in the 2024 election as Biden’s second in command. Voters already had concerns about Biden’s mental and physical fitness affecting his ability to carry out a second term, national polls show, and Jennings said the Justice Department report would only hurt his number.
“And it firmly shifted the conversation even further towards his own vice president,” Jennings said. “There aren’t too many Americans who are gonna look at this and say, ‘This guy is up to serving for five more years as president of the United States.’ I think Vice President Harris became squarely an issue in this election today.”
Like Biden’s, Harris’s approval rating has been consistently low, at 35.5%, per the RealClearPolitics average. Amid concerns about Biden’s age, Harris has defended the Democratic leader, telling The View hosts that critics “have nothing to run on.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur last year to investigate Biden’s retention of classified documents from his vice presidency. Government records were recovered from the Penn Biden Center in Washington and the president’s home in Delaware.
Hur determined not to bring any criminal charges against the president, writing that he didn’t think jurors would believe Biden “willfully” retained classified materials.
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“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote in a 388-page report.
In a last-minute speech on Thursday, Biden took a defensive approach in response to Hur’s report, telling reporters, “My memory’s fine.”
