Former President Donald Trump attended a campaign rally in Michigan just one week after he survived an assassination attempt and called Vice President Kamala Harris “nuts” as Democrats consider having her step up as their 2024 presidential candidate.
“She’s crazy, she’s nuts,” said Trump of the vice president as he sported a smaller bandage on his injured ear than he had on while attending the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisc., earlier this week.
Since President Joe Biden, 81, delivered a much-criticized performance last month during a debate with Trump, 78, there have been questions swirling about whether he would be replaced as the Democratic candidate. As his ear was grazed by a bullet in Pennsylvania last weekend, Trump pumped his fist, solidifying his image as a strong candidate and causing the questions about Biden to swirl faster.
Biden teased potentially dropping out of the race for a medical reason in an interview released last week. Then, the White House announced the president was diagnosed with COVID. He was self-isolating in Rehoboth, Del., Saturday as Harris hit the campaign trail in Massachusetts, according to The New York Times.
CNN reported Saturday that many Democrats would back Harris, 59, as Biden’s replacement. Even before the debate, voters and experts expressed concerns about Biden’s age as he planned to tackle another four-year term. He would be 86 years old at the end of the term if he were to win the election in November. Trump is just a few years younger.
As of Saturday, NBC News reported that at least 35 Congressional Democrats had called for Biden to step aside and that his family was also discussing the possibility. Mark Halperin said that Biden could announce that he is stepping down this weekend, but The Guardian reported that he was still resisting calls to step down from the campaign. Audacy reported this week that the chorus of voices telling Biden to step down included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“She turned on him like a dog,” said Trump of Pelosi Saturday. He added that he thinks “she’s crazy as a bedbug.”
Polls this week offered a mixed perspective on what a race between Trump and Harris would look like. Poll results released late this week by SoCal Research showed that both Biden and Harris had good odds (52% each) of beating Trump (41%) in New York. National CBS News polling from earlier in the week showed that Trump (52%) had an advantage over Biden (47%), while Harris fared a little better against the GOP candidate at 48%.
According to POLTICO, “data from Public Policy Polling found that Harris — with the right running mate — likely can defeat the Republican ticket of former President DONALD TRUMP and Ohio Sen. JD VANCE in two of the three ‘Blue Wall’ states the Biden campaign now sees as critical: Pennsylvania and Michigan.”
Democrats are expected to officially pick their candidate next month during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Ill.