Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to use President Joe Biden as a "meal ticket" to boost her own chances of grabbing a seat in the Oval Office, former California State Senate majority leader, Democrat Gloria Romero, has stated in an interview with Fox News.
Romero suggested that Harris is intentionally peddling both the idea of a 2024 Biden presidential run and her supposed alliance with him to discourage potential contenders who are not willing to run against Biden, only to eventually run herself.
"Let's face it; Joe Biden is Kamala Harris's meal ticket to potentially the presidency. She needs to go ahead and to keep putting out there for the public and especially potential other opponents that Joe Biden is running because the longer that people can believe that myth, the greater the opportunity is that no other contender like Newsom or Buttigieg change [opinion] or even Hillary Clinton might step into the fray," she explained.
Harris has previously claimed that she is ready to run again on a ticket with Biden if he seeks re-election in 2024.
The California Democrat separately lambasted other part of the US vice president's recent speech, in which Harris claimed that Americans "demand justice" with regards to former President Donald Trump's alleged snatching of classified documents after the end of his presidency.
12 September 2022, 15:03 GMT
Romero slammed Harris for trying to divert US citizens' attention away from the economic woes they have been facing recently, and added that any American should be "appalled" by the August FBI raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
"Once again, it's politi-speak. It's a way to try to reshape and to try to encourage the electorate to not look at inflation, to not look at the supply chain, to not look at the crisis of a very unsecured border, and to try to focus on these so-called divisive issues such as an activist court," Romero said referring to Harris' characterization of the US Supreme Court over its decision to overrule Roe v Wade earlier this summer.
Biden, just like his 2020 opponent Donald Trump, has not yet made any statements confirming or denying his plans for the 2024 campaign, although he has said that he does not rule out running. However, the POTUS currently enjoys one of the lowest levels of public support among US presidents amid raging inflation, fuel prices, baby formula shortages and rising numbers of illegal migrants on the southern border.