That #awkwardmoment when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi couldn’t say whether Kamala Harris is the best running mate for an incumbent Joe Biden, or why the vice president seems to be so bad at her job.
The hilarious floundering happened on CNN Wednesday night, when host Anderson Cooper point-blank asked Pelosi if she thought Harris was the “best running mate” for Biden heading into his campaign for a second presidential term in 2024.
“He thinks so, and that’s what matters,” she answered.
Pelosi then pivoted, claiming that Harris is “very politically astute,” pointing to times when Harris was down in the polls and managed to “do her politics” and pull votes to eke out the win for California attorney general. In her story, Pelosi mistakenly (we think) conflated the time Harris won the race for San Francisco District Supervisor - not California AG - in a three-way race after polls showed her lagging in support.
“But is she the best running mate though?” Cooper pressed again.
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“She’s the vice president of the United States,” Pelosi responded, as if that were somehow an answer.
Full Pelosi video here. Anderson Cooper asks three times if Harris is the best running mate for Biden and she dodges. pic.twitter.com/vc331wmbfh
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) September 14, 2023
Harris has been widely mocked for serving up copious helpings of word salad in speeches on the road, seeming to prefer throwing out empty poetic monologues to delivering actual results on the issues the administration has chosen her to spearhead. But the fact that Harris doesn't have much to show for her three years in office doesn't surprise Pelosi - after all, she says, a Vice President doesn't really do anything.
“People say to me, ‘Well, why isn’t she going this or that?’ And I say, ‘Because she’s the vice president. That’s the job description.’ You don’t do that much,” she laughed. “You’re a source of strength, of inspiration, you’re an intellectual resource and the rest. And I think she’s represented a country very well at home and abroad.”
A ringing endorsement, if there ever was one.