Vice President Kamala Harris caught herself before almost introducing President Joe Biden as vice president during a White House Fourth of July event.
Biden and Harris, along with their respective spouses, spoke to a gathering of military families before the fireworks on the National Mall to celebrate Independence Day. Harris corrected herself before saying Biden’s name — calling him the president instead of the vice president.
Kamala Harris calls Joe Biden ‘vice president’
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— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) July 5, 2024
“And thanks to our incredible commander in chief, the vice — the president of the United States, the extraordinary president of the United States, Joe Biden,” Harris said.
Biden previously served as vice president under former President Barack Obama from 2009 until 2017, but the near-gaffe by Harris comes as questions are mounting over Biden’s age and mental acuity after his disastrous debate performance last week in Atlanta.
Harris wasn’t the only one to flub her lines on Thursday.
In an interview with a Philadelphia radio station, Biden appeared to mix up two of his talking points about his record — that he served as vice president to the first black president and that he got elected with the first black woman on a ticket as his vice president.
“I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first black woman, to serve with a black president,” Biden said.
In the same interview, Biden tried to tout his Catholic credentials by saying he was “the first president [who] got elected statewide in the state of Delaware.” The comment came as he was talking about discrimination against Catholics.
Throughout the week, Biden has received calls to step aside and allow another candidate to lead Democrats in November — including from multiple House Democrats. Biden, his campaign, the White House, and the president’s closest allies and surrogates have maintained that Biden will remain in the race until the end.
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Multiple reports on Wednesday suggested that the president told a key ally that he knew his debate performance was shaky and that the public appearances in the following days would be pivotal to continuing his campaign.
In the polls since the debate, Biden has stayed behind former President Donald Trump — with some polls showing the president dropping from just before the debate. In a New York Times-Siena College poll released on Wednesday, Biden trailed Trump by 6% nationally after he only trailed Trump by 3% in a survey conducted prior to the debate between the two.
