A reporter for ABC News Australia pressed former Vice President Kamala Harris for deflecting after she was asked if President Biden should have withdrawn from the 2024 presidential race earlier than he did.
“Wasn’t his refusal to recognize his own frailties the reason that you faced a nearly impossible task?” host Sarah Ferguson asked Harris during an interview published this week.
Harris responded, “I ran against Donald Trump,” noting that the then-GOP nominee ran on a platform that was “misrepresenting his intentions.”
“You combine that intention … with massive amounts of misinformation,” the former vice president began to say before Ferguson interrupted her.
“Forgive me … that is a world-class pivot,” the journalist said. “But it is not the question I asked you, which is about Joe Biden’s failure to recognize his own frailties and what that did to you.”
Ferguson asked if Harris was “still reluctant” to criticize Biden.
“In what regard?” the former vice president pressed back.
After Ferguson asked her question again, Harris replied that “he was not frail when he was president of the United States.”
The back-and-forth comes as several former Biden aides and allies have faced intense questions from Republican lawmakers and conservative media figures about the former president’s mental state in the run-up to the 2024 election.
After a disastrous debate performance against Trump in June 2024, the former president dropped out of the race and cleared the way for Harris to take the party’s nomination.
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