Bill Maher's guests say Dems shoved Harris in a broom closet — and set her up to fail
Kamala Harris was set up “to fail” by President Joe Biden's refusal to clear the way for a Democratic primary and instead pass the torch to his vice president with just over 100 days to pitch herself to the American public, one expert said Friday night on "Overtime" with "Real Time" host Bill Maher.
“When Biden refused to step aside and not run again, he was supposed to be that bridge, he backed off on that promise due to arrogance and then he drops out after a catastrophic debate performance and they set Kamala Harris up to fail,” said Sarah Isgur, a senior editor at The Dispatch and former director of the Office of Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Justice.
“That was a three-month campaign, and she was supposed to introduce herself to the American people, no wonder people were Googling ‘Did Joe Biden drop out?’” Isgur said. She added that Harris had to “start from scratch with a campaign team that didn’t like her.”
“No, you're saying three months wasn't long enough?” Maher asked to laughter and cheers from the audience. “I mean it was too long, it was long enough.”
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Isgur added that it will be interesting to see who the next Democratic superstar to emerge during the Trump years will be – “maybe somebody that’s not even on our radar yet.”
John Heilemann, chief political columnist at Puck, echoed Isgur’s observations.
“You're the sitting vice president and you get...elevated to the top of the ticket 107 days ahead of the election, I think that that is a very high degree of difficulty to put on anybody,” he said.
“I don’t know if you know this but the vice president of the United States was basically shoved in a broom closet for 3 1/2 years,” Heilemann quipped.
“I know,” Maher said. “She was more popular in there.”