Vice President Kamala Harris tried to put to bed calls for her to replace President Joe Biden on the 2024 Democratic ticket with a rally in Las Vegas where she ignored the elephant in the room.
Biden’s fitness for office has come under intense scrutiny in the two weeks after his car crash debate performance against Donald Trump.
And while Harris is floated as the one to take over should Biden drop out of the running, the vice president is not faltering in her commitment to running as his No. 2 again.
‘Now we always knew this election would be tough – and the past few days have been a reminder that running for President of the United States is never easy,’ Harris acknowledged at the swing-state campaign stop on Tuesday. ‘But the one thing we know about our President, Joe Biden, is that he is a fighter.’
‘And he is the first to say when you get knocked down you get back up. We all know – many of us know what that is. So we continue to fight and we will continue to organize and in November we will win,’ she added.
Harris did not mention in her nearly 16-minute remarks Biden’s debate performance or the massive turn against him from within the Democratic Party. She also did not address calls for her to lead the Democratic ticket in November.
The show of unity came at a rally in Las Vegas, Nevada launching the group Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders for Biden.
From Nevada, Harris is heading to Texas for an event on Wednesday and will continue back to the East Coast on Thursday for a campaign stop in the right-leaning swing state of North Carolina.
Over the weekend, Harris will hold another AANHPI event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Attendees on Tuesday, most members of the AANHPI community, received the first female vice president with chants of ‘four more years’ and ‘let’s dump Trump.’ Harris, whose mother is from India, is part of the Asian American community.
‘We are 118 days out from the election. And while many of us have been involved with these elections every four years and nearly every time we say, ‘this is the one.’ Well, this here is the one. This is the one. The most existential, consequential and important election of our lifetime,’ Harris said from the podium of a ballroom in Resorts World.
Instead of stoking confidence in Biden, the vice president used her time speaking to bash Donald Trump’s record and present the binary choice to Americans between the incumbent president and the former president.
Specifically, Harris called out limitations to abortion rights implemented by the Supreme Court after Trump appointed three conservative justices.
She also slammed Trump’s 34 felony counts and four pending criminal trials.
Event attendees who spoke with DailyMail.com say they still want to see Biden at the top of the 2024 ticket but would support Harris if she ended up being the nominee in November.