LAS VEGAS – President Biden said Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris “could be president of the United States” while addressing the NAACP's annual convention, as a running mate. Democrats are trying to convince him take a step before the November 5 elections.
“Not only is she a great vice president, she could be president of the United States,” the 81-year-old chief executive said of Harris, 59, who would be better positioned to replace it if you decide to withdraw.
Biden gave no indication that he would, however, telling the crowd that he had a plan for the first 100 days of a second term, including signing voting rights legislation “to shit or water”.
The incumbent repeatedly attacked Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in his remarks, even as he called on Americans to “lower the temperature” of the campaign in a rare Oval Office address on Sunday, after Trump, 78, was wounded in an assassination attempt on Saturday.
“Donald Trump's presidency was hell for black America,” Biden exclaimed at one point.
“What the hell is wrong with this man?” Biden said at another point, explaining how the National Guard responded to protests and unrest in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd.
Trump “lies like hell” about their respective black unemployment records, the president also said, deriding Trump's focus on growing “black jobs.”
“I love that phrase, 'black jobs,' it tells us a lot about the man and about his character,” Biden said.
“Friends, I know what a black job is. He is the vice president of the United States. I know what a black job is: the first black president in the history of the United States, Barack Obama.”
Biden also announced his appointment of Lloyd Austin as the first black secretary of defense and Ketanji Brown Jackson to be the first black woman on the Supreme Court.
Trump is “a guy who spread the birther lie about Barack Obama, saying he wasn't born in the United States and he wasn't an American citizen,” Biden said.
The president said Republicans would “undo everything the NAACP stands for.”
While the president said in an Oval Office speech Sunday night that “we all have a responsibility” to use more measured language on the campaign trail after Trump was shot, he defended against throwing sharp barbs at Trump and the recently minted Republican vice presidential candidate, Senator JD Vance. from Ohio less than 48 hours later.
“Just because we have to turn down the heat on politics … doesn't mean you have to stop telling the truth,” Biden said.
The president also said the “truth” about the former president was “he tried to kill Obamacare” that brought health insurance “to millions of black families,” instead of offering a $2 trillion tax cut from dollars to billionaires.
Biden's comments were well received by the NAACP crowd, which heard a number of black officials from the Biden administration: Acting Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Adrianne Todman, Assistant Attorney General for the civil rights, Kristen Clark, and special assistant Stephen K. Benjamin, former mayor of Columbia. , South Carolina.
Benjamin called press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to the stage, but she didn't speak, just waved to the cheering crowd.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson, in introducing the president, praised the achievements of the Biden administration and ridiculed the “Project 2025” agenda proposed by the Heritage Foundation, which neither the GOP nor Trump has officially adopted. as “a 900-page manifesto that seeks to undermine progress.” [and] harm our community.”
The civil rights organization, Johnson asserted, is “nonpartisan, but we're political as hell” and focuses on policy, not individuals.
Biden also criticized the “Project 2025” document, although he first called it “Project 2024” and also the “2025 Agenda”. The president also tripped over his proposal to slow rent increases in corporate-owned rental homes, he first said those increases would be capped at $55, but later corrected himself to say there would be a 5% cap.
Democrats have plans nominate Biden virtually this month – ahead of the August 19-22 Democratic convention – although congressional dissenters are it is expected that it will give a new push to convince the oldest president in history to retire after his disastrous June 27 debate performance.
So far, 20 House Democrats and one Democratic senator have publicly called on Biden to do so, citing concerns about his cognitive fitness.