During one of the latest episodes of Mark Halperin’s show 2Way Tonight, Gingrich said he had “a hunch, as a historian and occasional novelist … that sometime in the last two weeks, Joe and Jill looked at each other and thought, ‘You know, wouldn’t it be a great legacy if Joe’s the only guy ever to beat Trump?’”
“I think the stuff he’s done to undermine her in the last 10 days is pretty amazing, and I don’t think it’s an accident,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich’s musings come as Trump and his allies have suggested Biden carries a grudge against Harris after he was pushed by his party to end his presidential bid in July. Biden subsequently endorsed his No. 2 to be his successor at the top of the Democratic ticket.
“He hates Kamala more than he hates me, in my opinion, and that’s a lot,” Trump said during a Reno, Nevada, rally on Friday evening after claiming Harris upstaged Biden with a “coup.”
Some right-leaning pundits speculated that Biden’s recent move to praise Gov. Ron Desantis’s (R-FL) disaster relief efforts after Hurricanes Helene and Milton have undercut Harris’s public criticism of the Republican lawmaker. Though Harris alleged DeSantis is “playing political games” in the wake of the natural disasters, Biden told reporters he is doing “a great job” on Tuesday.
Biden also fueled speculation when he made an unusual appearance in the White House press briefing room at the same time as Harris’s rally in a pivotal battleground state. Trump allies suggested Biden was trying to upstage the vice president’s Flint, Michigan, event when he showed up in the briefing room for the first time as president on Oct. 4. The Harris campaign was also reportedly annoyed by the move, per the New York Times.
Some conservatives suggested Biden’s remarks during the same press conference highlighting Harris’s role in his administration could be a deliberate effort to help former President Donald Trump’s campaign. Trump and his allies have fought to tie Harris to economic policies and immigration policies created by the White House that have proved unpopular with a significant chunk of the country’s electorate.
“We’re singing from the same song sheet. She helped pass all the laws. She was a major player in everything we’ve done,” Biden said at a press conference earlier this month.
“She was a major player in everything we’ve done, including the passage of legislation which we were told we could never pass,” he added. “She’s been, and her staff is interlocked with mine in terms of all the things we’re doing.”
The Harris campaign has appeared to vacillate between taking credit for policies created under the Biden administration and trying to distance the vice president from her boss.
When recently asked on The View if she would have done anything “differently” than Biden during the four years he has led the nation, Harris responded, “There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of — and I’ve been a part of — of the decisions that have had impact.”
But the vice president has repeatedly said that “clearly, I am not Joe Biden,” instead touting “a new generation of leadership,” as she emphasized to Trump during their debate last month.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Other indicators, including an Axios report in August, suggest that Harris is none too eager to embrace Biden’s economic legacy, which is unpopular with many voters.
“She wants to be not-Biden on inflation — arguably the biggest domestic topic of this campaign — by proposing clearer, more urgent solutions,” the outlet said. “Harris doesn’t want to be completely defined by the Biden-Harris record, advisers tell us.”
