Biden Bows Out: Commentary By Dan Rather

 Then-U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, shown during acceptance speech for the Democratic Vice Presidential nominated on Aug. 19, 2020.

Editor’s Note: The following guest column was written by Dan Rather, right, following President Biden’s withdrawal of his candidacy for re-election in 2024.

Rather first published the column in his near-daily column “Steady,” which he so named to urge readers to stay balanced during our troubled times. This editor is a subscriber to the columns, which are published in collaboration with a team and which benefit from Rather’s experience and blunt, colorful style. Rather, whose 91st birthday was Oct. 31, is currently based in his native Texas. The iconic author and journalist worked for many years as the CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor.

– Andrew Kreig, Justice Integrity Project editor

Americans, every one of us, are about to be tested as never before. We have always been known for our ability to rise above challenges. This will be one for the ages. I have hope and faith that we are up to it. We had better be. Democracy as we have known it depends on us.

First and foremost, we all need to take a deep breath and understand what is ahead of us. Although Biden’s decision has been in the works for weeks, it is still shocking, so please support each other as we all grapple with what this means. With President Biden bowing out, the next 107 days will be unlike any presidential campaign in American history. If you can, I recommend getting involved real quick, or at least paying very close attention to the news and this space. And talk to all of your friends and family.

God love Joe Biden. He saved this country four years ago, and he is trying to do so again today. Biden’s legacy is now secure, from his legislative accomplishments to making the hardest political decision of his life.

There are two paths forward. To avoid chaos at the convention in Chicago, Democrats would need to get behind Vice President Kamala Harris. The other option is to hold an open convention, allowing delegates to choose among anyone who throws their hat in the ring. Be prepared. This will not be a smooth process. Real democracy is never easy.

For all who have been clamoring for a jolt of energy into presidential politics, here you go. Americans who have been asking for a different choice will now have it.

The hope of many Americans of varying political persuasions is that whichever way the convention goes, the new Democratic nominee will quickly unify the party, bring back anyone who has been disenchanted by the campaign so far, and appeal to those who have yet to decide.

We must not lose sight of the end game: to defeat the new autocrats and their leader, a convicted felon and an insurrectionist, who is fundamentally dangerous for the country.

Contact the author Andrew Kreig

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July 23

Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., on Monday, July 23, 2024 (Pool photo by Erin Schaff of Getty Images).

Roll Call, ‘Changes everything’: Harris atop Democratic ticket alters race with Trump, John T. Bennett, July 23, 2024 (print ed). Vice president’s campaign reports huge campaign cash infusion

“Ruffles and Flourishes” played at the start of a White House event on Monday, but in a musical reminder of the transformed presidential race, the blaring horns were not followed by “Hail to the Chief.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, not a still-recovering Joe Biden, walked onto a South Lawn stage one day after the president ended his bid for a second term and threw his support behind her. Democrats continued to rally around Harris — in the forms of donations and endorsements — to be the party’s presidential nominee, shaking up a race in which Biden had been losing ground to former President Donald Trump.

“It changes everything about the campaign. It’s a whole new day,” Ivan Zapien, a former DNC official and Senate aide, said in a Monday email. “It’s a boxing match on top of the Millenium Falcon in ‘Star Wars’ as Chewbacca hits warp speed.”

Later Monday, during a stop at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., Harris went right at Trump as she used what amounted to her first speech as the party’s likely nominee to allude to her time as a prosecutor in California.

“I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she said to applause from staff there. “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type. And in this campaign, I will proudly … put my record against his.”

The campaign is about “two different visions for the future of our country,” she said. “One focused on the future, the other focused on the past. Donald Trump wants to take our country back to a time when many of our fellow Americans” lacked many freedoms or rights.

She vowed to strengthen the middle class, enact stricter firearms background checks and “fight for reproductive freedom,” contending Trump would sign a national abortion ban. “When Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law,” she said.

The vice president had been working the phones since Biden announced his decision to “stand down,” on Sunday alone calling more than 100 party bigwigs, lawmakers, governors, labor leaders and civil rights advocates, according to a person familiar with her efforts. That outreach continued Monday, and Harris made her first public appearances since becoming the Democratic front-runner.

“Joe Biden’s legacy of accomplishments over the past three years is unmatched in modern history,” she said during an event honoring NCAA champions at the White House. “In one term, he has already surpassed the legacy of most presidents who have served two terms in office.”

To the athletes assembled on the South Lawn, she delivered a message that also could serve as advice for her own likely campaign against Trump, again the GOP nominee: “I know it was not easy to make it to this moment. Each of you has faced challenges and obstacles, and you have endured. … By doing so, you demonstrated that true greatness requires more than skill. It requires grit and determination.”

The vice president stood in for Biden, who his doctor said has completed antiviral treatment at his Delaware beach home for COVID-19, at the event several hours after three potential rivals for the nomination, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and retiring West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III, said they would not run. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who reportedly had pleaded with Biden in recent days to consider dropping out, also endorsed Harris on Monday, offering her “enthusiastic support.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, had not formally backed Harris. But in a joint statement released Monday afternoon, the duo said she was “off to a great start with her promise to pursue the presidential nomination in a manner consistent with the grassroots and transparent process set forth by the Democratic National Committee.” They added they planned to meet with her “shortly as we collectively work to unify the Democratic Party and the country.”

Harris had garnered the backing of enough delegates to clinch the Democratic Party’s nomination, according to a survey by The Associated Press, as of 9:45 p.m. on Monday. She secured a majority of the 3,649 delegates as it was announced she won the backing of Georgia’s delegation.

New York Times, Harris Has Enough Support for a Nomination. Here’s Which State Delegations Endorsed Her, Elena Shao and Martín González Gómez, July 23, 2024 (print ed.). Where delegations have declared support for Kamala Harris.

In a show of party unity, state convention delegations have declared their support for Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee. These endorsements represent more than enough delegates to clinch the party’s nomination.

Ms. Harris most likely has more support than these declarations indicate. Many individual delegates have said they intend to vote for Ms. Harris, but their state delegations have not yet collectively done the same.

The state party endorsements represent 52 percent of the 3,949 delegates who will vote on the first ballot at the party convention. There are additional unpledged delegates, commonly known as superdelegates, who will vote only if no candidate receives a majority in the first round of voting.

State party endorsements are not binding and do not necessarily mean that individual delegates must vote for Ms. Harris. According to party rules, the delegates who previously pledged to support Mr. Biden can vote for any candidate now that he has withdrawn from the race.

Most state delegations listed below voted unanimously among those present to support Ms. Harris.

New York Times, Trump’s New Rival May Bring Out His Harshest Instincts, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, July 23, 2024. After planning to face President Biden, Donald Trump will be campaigning against Kamala Harris. He has attacked female rivals in brutal and personal terms.

Donald J. Trump and his political team spent nearly two years tailoring a campaign to defeat an old white male president who is conspicuously frail and who most Americans had told pollsters they doubted could handle another four-year term.

Suddenly, Mr. Trump faces a starkly different opponent: a vice president who is a Black woman, nearly 20 years younger, and who brings her own strengths and weaknesses but who adds new uncertainty into what had been a remarkably static race.

Allies of Ms. Harris have already telegraphed that she will run a campaign framed around a “prosecutor versus felon” theme, highlighting her experience as a prosecutor and underscoring the fact that Mr. Trump has been indicted in multiple jurisdictions and convicted of 34 felonies.

The prosecutor-versus-felon approach may appeal to undecided voters who had been sour on both Mr. Trump and President Biden. It may also goad Mr. Trump, who reacts strongly to criticism, into resurrecting the language he has used against other Black female prosecutors, such as Letitia James in New York and Fani Willis in Georgia, both of whom he has called “racist” and attacked in personal terms.

In a preview of what’s to come, Ms. Harris made the prosecutor’s attack line explicit during an appearance on Monday, describing her past as the district attorney of San Francisco and the attorney general of California.

“In those roles I took on perpetrators of all kinds: Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type,” she said.

Mr. Trump, for his part, has been trying to soften some of his harshest rhetoric about seeking vengeance on his rivals ahead of the general election. But over many years, he has turned off a sizable proportion of college-educated voters and suburban women with his rhetoric on gender and race — and the Harris candidacy introduces the risk of Mr. Trump lashing out at her and further alienating those voters.

New York Times, A lot has changed for women since the 2016 election. What does that mean for Kamala Harris? Patricia Mazzei, Jenna Russell, Richard Fausset and Christina Morales, July 23, 2024 (print ed.). Voters eager to elect the first female president pointed to anger over a loss of abortion rights, but also acknowledged a fear that sexism would remain difficult for Ms. Harris to overcome.

In the eight years since Hillary Clinton failed to win the American presidency, the work force for the first time grew to include more college-educated women than college-educated men. The #MeToo movement exposed sexual harassment and toppled powerful men. The Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion.

Will any — or all — of it make a difference for Vice President Kamala Harris?

Ms. Harris seems almost certain to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee after President Biden’s decision not to seek re-election. As such, she faces, fairly or not, some of the same electability questions that Mrs. Clinton confronted in a nation that, unlike many of its peers around the globe, has yet to pick a woman as its leader.

A presidential contest pitting Ms. Harris against former President Donald J. Trump would represent a rematch of sorts: Mr. Trump would again have to run against a woman who held a top administration position and served in the Senate. He defeated Mrs. Clinton in 2016 in spite of her winning the popular vote by a wide margin.

But the dynamics would be unquestionably different. Ms. Harris has neither the political legacy nor the baggage of Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Trump, having served a turbulent term in office, is now a known quantity. Ms. Harris is Black and of South Asian descent.

And the country is not the same as it was eight long years ago.

“Women are angrier, and that could be motivating,” said Karen Crowley, 64, an independent voter and retired nurse in Concord, N.H., who would not vote for Mr. Trump, did not feel like she could support Mr. Biden and now planned to back Ms. Harris.

Among the motivations Ms. Crowley cited were the demise of Roe v. Wade and comments and actions by Mr. Trump that many women see as sexist and misogynistic. “A woman president might be more possible now,” she said.

New York Times, Live Updates: Harris Hits Trail With Delegates, Cash and Energy at Her Back, Nicholas Nehamas and Chris Cameron, July 23, 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris, who has secured commitments from enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination, will campaign in Wisconsin.

A day after winning commitments from enough delegates to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, Vice President Kamala Harris is headed to Wisconsin on Tuesday to campaign in a battleground state that will play a starring role in the November election.

Ms. Harris, who would be the first Black woman to become the nominee of a major party, is set to speak in the Milwaukee area. The city has a large African American population that could prove crucial to her chances.

Many Democrats have taken heart since President Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Ms. Harris on Sunday. Mr. Biden’s campaign had been in crisis for nearly a month, with even his allies suggesting he should bow out after a poor debate performance. His withdrawal has re-energized the party. On Monday, Ms. Harris showcased that new aggressive spirit in a speech at her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., tearing into former President Donald J. Trump’s policies as reactionary and comparing him to the “predators,” “fraudsters” and “cheaters” she had prosecuted during her legal career.

Her campaign said it had raised more than $100 million between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, far outstripping what either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump had been able to raise in that amount of time.

New York Times, Trump, Who Tried to Overturn the Election, Seeks to Flip the Script on Democrats, Nick Corasaniti and Jim Rutenberg, July 23, 2024. Donald Trump said primary voters were disenfranchised by President Biden’s withdrawal. Democrats noted Mr. Trump had once tried to have ballots tossed out.

Ever since rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the Democratic Party has sought to claim the mantle of democracy, painting Donald J. Trump and his allies as extremists willing to deny the will of voters to cling to power.

Now, after President Biden dropped his re-election bid and Democrats swiftly aligned behind Vice President Kamala Harris as a replacement, Republicans are trying to flip the argument.

In a series of statements and social media posts, Republicans have argued that Democrats, by pressuring Mr. Biden to quit, have “disenfranchised” the 14 million people who voted for him in the party primaries.

The accusation isn’t based on any party rule or supposed legal violation. Instead, it is the Republicans’ latest attempt to muddy the waters on an issue that helped Democrats win key races two years ago. Since Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in 2020, which led to the Jan. 6 riot and criminal charges against the former president, Democrats have cast Republicans as a threat to democratic norms.

They have used images from the Jan. 6 riot in attack ads and mobilized Democratic voters against Republican-backed legislation restricting voting. The issue was especially potent for Democratic governors and secretaries of state in critical swing states, who won every election for statewide office except for governor in Nevada and Georgia in 2022.

On Monday, Mr. Trump tried a new tactic to neutralize that threat, zeroing in on the “stolen” nomination claim. “They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries — A First!” Mr. Trump posted on his social media site. “These people are the real THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”

The two most senior Republican congressional leaders — Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky — echoed the claim.

“Having invalidated the votes of more than 14 million Americans who selected Joe Biden to be the Democrat nominee for president, the self-proclaimed ‘party of democracy,’ has proven exactly the opposite,” Mr. Johnson said. Mr. McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, said Democrats were “trying to upend the expressed will” of primary voters.

There is nothing in Mr. Biden’s withdrawal or his endorsement of Ms. Harris that appears to violate any party or election rules. Under party rules, when a candidate withdraws after the primary elections but before officially securing the nomination, delegates are free to vote for another candidate of their choosing. Republican Party rules outline a similar process.

Democrats and voting rights experts dismissed the criticism as specious, and argued that Republicans lacked credibility on the subject.

New York Times, Opinion: Joe Biden Just Showed Us What Patriotism Looks Like, Jon Meacham (Mr. Meacham, right, a historian, has advised President Biden on historical matters and major speeches throughout his term). July 23, 2024 (print ed.).

On the cliffs of Normandy, in a small holding area, the president of the United States was looking out at the English Channel. It was only six weeks ago, on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, and President Biden had just finished his remarks at the American cemetery atop Omaha Beach. Guests had been congratulating him on the speech, but he didn’t want to talk about himself. The moment was not about him; it was about the men who had fought and died there. “Today feels so large,” he told me. “This may sound strange — and I don’t mean it to — but when I was out there, I felt the honor of it, the sanctity of it. To speak for the American people, to speak over those graves, it’s a profound thing.” He turned from the view over the beaches and gestured back toward the war dead. “You want to do right by them, by the country.”

Mr. Biden has spent a lifetime trying to do right by the nation, and he did so in the most epic of ways when he chose to end his campaign for re-election. His decision is one of the most remarkable acts of leadership in our history, an act of self-sacrifice that places him in the company of George Washington, who also stepped away from the presidency. To put something ahead of one’s immediate desires — to give, rather than to try to take — is perhaps the most difficult thing for any human being to do. And Mr. Biden has done just that.

To be clear: Mr. Biden is my friend, and it has been a privilege to help him when I can. Not because I am a Democrat — I belong to neither party and have voted for both Democrats and Republicans — but because I believe him to be a defender of the Constitution and a public servant of honor and of grace at a time when extreme forces threaten the nation. I do not agree with everything he has done or wanted to do in terms of policy. But I know him to be a good man, a patriot and a president who has met challenges all too similar to those Abraham Lincoln faced.

Here is the story I believe history will tell of Joe Biden. With American democracy in an hour of maximum danger in Donald Trump’s presidency, Mr. Biden stepped in the breach. He staved off an authoritarian threat at home, rallied the world against autocrats abroad, laid the foundations for decades of prosperity, managed the end of a once-in-a-century pandemic, successfully legislated on vital issues of climate and infrastructure and has conducted a presidency worthy of the greatest of his predecessors. History and fate brought him to the pinnacle in a late season in his life, and in the end, he respected fate — and he respected the American people.

It is, of course, an incredibly difficult moment. Highs and lows, victories and defeats, joy and pain: It has been ever thus for Mr. Biden. In the distant autumn of 1972, he experienced the most exhilarating of hours — election to the United States Senate at the age of 29. He was no scion; he earned it. Then darkness fell: His wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident that seriously injured his two sons, Beau and Hunter. But he endured, found purpose in the pain, became deeper, wiser, more empathetic. Through the decades, two presidential campaigns imploded, and in 2015 his son Beau, a lawyer and wonderfully promising young political figure, died of brain cancer after serving in Iraq.

Such tragedy would have broken many lesser men. Mr. Biden, however, never gave up, never gave in, never surrendered the hope that a fallen, frail and fallible world could be made better, stronger and more whole if people could summon just enough goodness and enough courage to build rather than tear down.

Character, as the Greeks first taught us, is destiny, and Mr. Biden’s character is both a mirror and a maker of his nation’s. Like Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, he is optimistic, resilient and kind, a steward of American greatness, a lover of the great game of politics and, at heart, a hopeless romantic about the country that has given him so much.

Nothing bears out this point as well as his decision to let history happen in the 2024 election. No matter how much people say that this was inevitable after the debate in Atlanta last month, there was nothing foreordained about an American president ending his political career for the sake of his country and his party. By surrendering the possibility of enduring in the seat of ultimate power, Mr. Biden has taught us a landmark lesson in patriotism, humility and wisdom.

Now the question comes to the rest of us. What will we the people do? We face the most significant of choices. Mr. Roosevelt framed the war whose dead Mr. Biden commemorated at Normandy in June as a battle between democracy and dictatorship. It is not too much to say that we, too, have what Mr. Roosevelt called a “rendezvous with destiny” at home and abroad. Mr. Biden has put country above self, the Constitution above personal ambition, the future of democracy above temporal gain. It is up to us to follow his lead.

Jon Meacham, a historian, is a professor at Vanderbilt and the author, most recently, of “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle.”

New York Times, With Biden Out, Democrats Pivot to Harris, Lisa Lerer, Shane Goldmacher, Katie Glueck and Reid J. Epstein, July 23, 2024 (print ed.).  Vice President Moves to Take Control in Transformed Race. After President Biden said he was ending his campaign and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, many — but not all — in the Democratic establishment followed. Ms. Harris must now choose a running mate and take charge of the campaign with little time before early voting begins in some states in September.

Powerful leaders of the Democratic establishment quickly embraced Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday after President Biden’s shocking exit from the race, hoping that a seamless succession could end a month of damaging chaos and transform a contest widely believed to be tipping toward Republicans.

By Sunday evening, Ms. Harris appeared to have a glide path to the nomination: No other top Democrats announced plans to challenge her, though some stopped short of an endorsement, including the party’s top congressional leaders and former President Barack Obama.

With breathtaking speed, she took control of Mr. Biden’s enormous political operation and contacted Democratic leaders in Congress and state houses to ask for their support. The Biden campaign formally renamed itself “Harris for President,” giving her immediate access to an account that had $96 million in cash at the end of June. On an internal call, the Biden campaign’s leaders told staff members that they would now work for Ms. Harris.

“I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda,” Ms. Harris said in a statement. “We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”

The rapid turn of events plunged the party and the nation into unfamiliar political territory, giving unelected Democratic officials the final say over the party’s nominee. Complicated decisions loom. Ms. Harris must choose a running mate, take charge of the campaign with little time before early voting begins in some states in September, rebuild support among voters who had fled Mr. Biden and prepare to withstand a full-blown Republican assault.

Speculation immediately turned to her potential running mate, with many Democrats privately arguing that Ms. Harris should pick a white man to widen her appeal and provide demographic balance to the ticket. A flotilla of governors — including Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Tim Walz of Minnesota — as well as Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona have been frequently mentioned by donors, officials and other lawmakers.

Mr. Biden endorsed Ms. Harris within minutes on Sunday afternoon. Before she had uttered a word about her intentions, he was swiftly followed by other party leaders, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, key Democratic senators and influential House members. By the evening, Mr. Shapiro had publicly

July 22

Letters From An American, Commentary: July 21, 2024 [Biden Withdrawal], Heather Cox Richardson, right, historian, author, July 22, 2024. With this letter, posted on X this afternoon, President Joe Biden announced he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president. So ended the storyline begun after the event on June 27, when Biden appeared unable to respond effectively to Trump’s verbal assaults.

Since then, there has been a drumbeat of media stories and some demands from Democratic lawmakers and donors calling for Biden to step aside and refuse to run for a second term. Increasingly, that drumbeat imperiled his reelection, opening the way for Trump’s election to install a dictatorship of Christian nationalism.

In another post shortly after the first, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidential nomination, writing: “My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats—it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”

Harris smoothly took the baton. “On behalf of the American people, I thank Joe Biden for his extraordinary leadership as President of the United States and for his decades of service to our country,” she wrote. “His remarkable legacy of accomplishment is unmatched in modern American history, surpassing the legacy of many Presidents who have served two terms in office.

Biden’s announcement ended the month of suspense under which the Democrats have lived, and in the hours since, they appear to be coalescing around Harris with enthusiasm. Those who might have challenged her nomination have stepped up to support her: California governor Gavin Newsom, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg all backed Harris; Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer said she does not intend to challenge Harris. By tonight, all of the state Democratic Party chairs were on board with Harris. Endorsements continued to pour in.

Washington Post, Opinion: Biden and his team reach the right decision, Jennifer Rubin, right, July 22, 2024. The president avoids a historic disaster.

In an extraordinary act of patriotism and self-awareness, President Biden announced Sunday he would step away from his own reelection campaign. Although he had seemingly cut himself off from seasoned voices in his party and was portrayed as huddled in his bunker, in the end he did listen to the overwhelming number of senior Democrats, donors and ordinary voters. He put his party and country first. There will be plenty of time to recount his immense accomplishments. However, for now, we can ask: How did it come to this?

Given Biden’s history, it is not surprising that he became habituated to tuning out experts, pollsters, party members — really anyone who doubted him. Over a lengthy career, Biden has been counted out and underestimated; he had defied pundit expectations. (“You were wrong about 2020. You were wrong about 2022,” he angrily told reporters. “We were going to get wiped out. Remember the red wave?”) The New York Times put it this way: “The comeback-kid mythology that Mr. Biden has built over a half century in politics is colliding with a new reality, where he is not being held up as a fighter who overcomes obstacles but is accused by his critics of putting his own ego ahead of the country.”

But it is folly, of course, to run a race without the full and complete support of one’s party, including congressional surrogates and donors. If you cannot convince, for example, members of the Democratic House Caucus of your viability, then how are you to convince skeptical voters and donors?

The Hartmann Report, Commentary: The Prosecutor Versus the Felon, Thom Hartmann, right, author and commentator, July 22, 2024. There’s little chance that the Democratic Party’s candidate will be anybody other than Kamala Harris, and she’s certainly earned it. President Biden put her in charge of the southern border and, Republican lies aside, illegal crossings are down dramatically (over 54% down, according to CBS News) and violent crime is at lows we haven’t seen in decades (it peaked with Trump).

She’s met with world leaders and represented America brilliantly during a time when China, Russia, and Iran are moving aggressively against nearby democracies and here in America the GOP has embraced naked authoritarianism.

She’s helped shepherd through Congress some of the most consequential legislation in our lifetimes to backstop the middle class, fight climate change, and revitalize the American economy. She’s been beside Biden at most of history’s hinge-points and honorably elevated her office, something nobody could say about, for example, Dan Quayle, Dick Cheney, or Mike Pence (with one single exception).

Vice President Harris has been an outspoken advocate of women’s reproductive rights in the face of Republican efforts to turn the clock back to the 1950s; she’s been a champion for voting rights (particularly the John Lewis Freedom To Vote Act); and has a solid law-and-order background as San Francisco District Attorney and California’s elected Attorney General.

She worked side-by-side with President Biden to bring our economy back from the worst collapse since the Republican Great Depression, rebuild our infrastructure, support democracies around the world, extend affordable healthcare to millions more Americans, lower prescription drug prices, pass the first consequential gun safety law in three decades, and appoint the first African American woman to the Supreme Court. And the two of them brought us out of the worst pandemic since 1918; Covid is also now well under control, thanks in no small part to their efforts.

And she’s electable: imagine the debate between a former sex crimes prosecutor and a man a jury found had raped one woman and who’s been accused of sexual assault by another 23 women (including one 13 years old). Trump can imagine that and it terrifies him; he’s already talking about changing the terms of the debate, saying yesterday he may refuse to show up if it’s carried on “biased” CBS as planned.

Vice President Kamala Harris has earned both Joe Biden’s trust and his endorsement for President of the United States. I believe she’s also earned the support of most American voters, and the Party needs to solidify the ticket fast.

Politico, Campaign Round-up, Staff Reports, July 22, 2024. Manchin ends his brief flirtation with presidential bid. The West Virginian left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent earlier this year. Well, that was fast. Sen. Joe Manchin’s (I-W.Va.) brief flirtation with a bid for the Democratic nomination for president ended between two cable news interviews Monday morning. “I am not running for office,” Manchin told “CBS Mornings” Gayle King. About an hour earlier on CNN “This Morning,” he told host Kasie Hunt “people are pushing in that direction” when asked if he was seeking the nomination.

In other news: If it wasn’t already clear from his off-script remarks at the Republican National Convention last week, former President Donald Trump’s calls for unity and cooled political rhetoric seem to be officially over.

“If we don’t win this election, we may never have another election,” Trump said in an interview with Jesse Watters airing tonight on Fox News, which was previewed Monday morning on “Fox and Friends.”

That messaging mirrors talking points from the left about Trump — though, notably, Trump, his campaign and many of his supporters continue to falsely claim that he won the 2020 election.

Trump said he wasn’t “worried about” about any Democratic candidate the party could nominate at the Democratic National Convention next month. “Look, they have bad policies, forget about the people,” he said, adding: “Their world is going woke.”

The interview — taped Saturday in Grand Rapids, Mich., before President Joe Biden ended his bid — is Trump’s first with running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and his first TV interview since the assassination attempt against him. It airs tonight at 8 p.m. ET.

No. 2 and 3 House Dem leaders endorse Harris. Reps. Katherine Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) became the latest prominent Democrats to back the vice president on Monday. Two of the senior-most House Democrats — Reps. Katherine Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) — threw their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid on Monday morning.

It’s a show of force from Harris, who’s racked up scores of endorsements from rank-and-file members since jumping into the race Sunday after President Joe Biden’s decision to abandon his reelection bid. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has vowed his party will eventually coalesce against Trump, but has yet to throw his weight behind Harris’ bid.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it was “encouraging” that President Joe Biden dropped out — but the former Democrat still doesn’t plan to challenge Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention next month. “I am not going to get into the Democratic Party if the system seems rigged,” Kennedy said Monday on Fox and Friends. “I think the Democrats really need to do what President Obama said, which is have an open process, a genuinely open process,” Kennedy added. But, he said, “I don’t see any evidence that they’re going to do that.”

New York Times, Analysis: Turning to Kamala Harris has promise, and risks, Shane Goldmacher, July 22, 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris swiftly established herself as the Democratic front-runner to take on Donald J. Trump within hours of President Biden’s exit on Sunday, fundamentally rewiring the presidential contest at warp speed.

Now the race has been transformed into an abbreviated 106-day sprint that more closely resembles the snap elections of Europe than the drawn-out American contests. The tight timeline will magnify any missteps Ms. Harris might make but also minimize the chances for a stumble.

And in a race that Mr. Trump had been on a trajectory to win, Ms. Harris immediately becomes the ultimate X-factor.

Mr. Biden quickly endorsed Ms. Harris, who would be a barrier-breaking nominee as the first woman, the first Black woman and the first person of South Asian descent ever to serve as president. As the Democratic Party rallies behind her — the loudest voices of dissent were simply those not publicly endorsing her — here are six ways her candidacy holds both promise and peril.

She inverts the age argument. During the Republican primaries, Nikki Haley had warned everyone who would listen that the first party to swap out its octogenarian candidate — Mr. Trump will turn 80 while in office if elected to a second term — would win. She was making the argument for herself but the logic applies to Ms. Harris, too.

Unlike the 81-year-old Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris, 59, is not old — and just that fact neutralizes what has been one of the most potent Trump lines of attack. Harris is also expected to give Democrats a far more vigorous campaigner. Her day job is not nearly as demanding as Mr. Biden’s, and she can barnstorm the country at a pace far faster than Mr. Trump has undertaken.

She’s a former prosecutor. Trump’s a convicted felon. Ms. Harris has often been at her best politically when she has taken on the role of prosecutor-in-chief, whether on the debate stage when she first bore into Mr. Biden in June 2019 over busing or as a senator on the Judiciary Committee where her intensive cross-examinations went viral.

Biden was ‘Scranton Joe.’ Harris will be tagged a California liberal. If Mr. Biden was widely seen as too elderly to lead, he had other advantages built up over 50 years in the public spotlight. Namely, he has long been viewed as a more moderate Democrat who pushed back against the more extreme elements of his party. It helped him appeal to the political middle. Ms. Harris does not have that advantage.

She gives Democrats a much-needed jolt of momentum.

New York Times, Biden Drops Out of Presidential Race, Bowing to Intense Pressure From Democrats, Michael D. Shear, July 22, 2024 (print ed.). Yields to Pressure From Democrats, Setting Up Contested Convention.

President Biden (shown above in a Gage Skidmore file photo) announced he would not seek re-election, writing that it was in “the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down.”

New York Times, Campaign Updates: Vice President Kamala Harris opens the first full day of her campaign, seeking to unify Democrats, Peter Baker, July 22, 2024. Democrats across the party announced their support for Vice President Kamala Harris after President Biden shook up the 2024 campaign by ending his bid.

A day after President Biden announced that he would drop out of the race and endorsed her, Ms. Harris faces the daunting task of taking over his campaign structure, fending off opposition to her rise to the top of the ticket and defining herself for the American public before Republicans do.

She starts off with a tremendous burst of excitement from Democrats willing to put aside past doubts about her, out of an anxious desire to end the divisions that have torn the party apart in the three weeks since Mr. Biden’s halting debate performance persuaded many that he should not remain in the race.

Governors, lawmakers, state party chairs, union leaders and incoming convention delegates rushed to offer Ms. Harris their support late into Sunday night, with more expected on Monday. Among them was Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, once seen as a possible candidate if Mr. Biden were not in the race. An ally of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan said she would not run, and no other candidate jumped in.

While some party leaders like former President Barack Obama and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi have not endorsed her, suggesting the need for a competition, Ms. Harris sought to defuse complaints of a coronation by emphasizing in a written statement on Sunday that she intended to “earn and win this nomination.”

Here’s what else to know:

• First Harris appearance: The vice president is scheduled to preside over a celebration of N.C.A.A. championship teams from the 2023-24 season to be held on the South Lawn of the White House, while the president continues to recover from Covid at his vacation house in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
• Trump campaign attacks: The Republican candidate wasted little time posting an ad against Ms. Harris, linking her to Mr. Biden on issues like inflation and the border. “Kamala was in on it,” the ad said. “She covered up Joe’s obvious mental decline. But Kamala knew Joe couldn’t do the job. So she did it.” Therefore, the ad argued, “Kamala owns this failed record.”
• Delegates coalesce: Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey will lead a call of the state’s delegation on Monday to rally behind Ms. Harris, while the Connecticut Democratic Party will meet Monday night to vote on whether to award the state’s 74 delegates to her.
• Biden in seclusion: The president, who has been in isolation since testing positive for Covid on Wednesday, had no public events on his schedule for Monday and it remained uncertain when he would return to Washington. Advisers were preparing an address to the nation he might deliver from the Oval Office, possibly on Tuesday.

July 21

Washington Post, Opinion: How a Harris presidential campaign would transform the race, Jennifer Rubin, July 21, 2024. If Biden drops out, the vice president can make the campaign about Trump’s radical plans.

So what would the race look like if Biden were not the nominee?

As a preliminary matter, the notion that someone without the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris campaign operation — and without foreign policy experience, vetting on the national stage or the advantage of running on an incumbent’s record — could jump the line ahead of the vice president to take the nomination beggars belief.

A random White governor with none of those advantages is supposed to be introduced to the American people, galvanize the party and defeat all competitors — all while displacing the first African American and Asian American female vice president? Beltway pundits can spin all the scenarios they like, but if Harris is not the nominee, a Democratic Party meltdown is nearly certain.

So let’s assume that Harris would head the ticket. What then? She could make this a very different race in multiple ways. (Excerpt continued below.)

Statements From Biden-Harris Campaign and VP Harris:

Throughout his entire career, Joe Biden has always put this country first. Under his leadership, we have made incredible progress: We now have the strongest economy in the world, we’ve lowered prescription drug prices, expanded access to affordable healthcare, passed the first gun safety law in 30 years and the most significant climate legislation in world history.

As he said since the beginning of this campaign, the stakes in this election could not be higher. Our rights, our freedoms, and our very democracy are on the line.

The first decision he made as the nominee of our party, was to select Kamala Harris as his running mate because he knew she was up for the job and prepared to lead this party. That’s why he is so proud to endorse her candidacy for president of the United States today.

With Vice President Harris as our nominee, Democrats will defeat Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans up and down the ballot this November.

Statement from Vice President Kamala Harris, shown below, right:

“On behalf of the American people, I thank Joe Biden for his extraordinary leadership as President of the United States and for his decades of service to our country. His remarkable legacy of accomplishment is unmatched in modern American history, surpassing the legacy of many Presidents who have served two terms in office.

“It is a profound honor to serve as his Vice President, and I am deeply grateful to the President, Dr. Biden, and the entire Biden family. I first came to know President Biden through his son Beau. We were friends from our days working together as Attorneys General of our home states. As we worked together, Beau would tell me stories about his Dad. The kind of father—and the kind of man—he was. And the qualities Beau revered in his father are the same qualities, the same values, I have seen every single day in Joe’s leadership as President: His honesty and integrity. His big heart and commitment to his faith and his family. And his love of our country and the American people.

“With this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of service: putting the American people and our country above everything else.

“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination. Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election. And that is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead. I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.

“We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”

New York Times, Here’s why former President Obama did not immediately endorse Kamala Harris, Glenn Thrush, July 22, 2024 (print ed.). Many of the marquee names in Democratic politics began quickly lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday, but one towering presence in the party held back: Barack Obama.backed Ms. Harris after a phone call from her. She also picked up endorsements from Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, Mr. Cooper and Mr. Kelly.

Reuters via Yahoo News, All state Democratic party chairs endorse Harris, Jeff Mason, Nandita Bose and Jarrett Renshaw, July 21, 2024. State Democratic party chairs on Sunday threw their weight behind Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party’s new presidential nominee to run against Republican nominee and former president, Donald Trump.

Source: https://www.justice-integrity.org/2062-biden-bows-out-commentary-by-dan-rather