WASHINGTON – Thursday night in Chicago belonged to Kamala Harris, but Joe Biden was at the heart of the vice president’s victory and combative acceptance speech.
Biden was nowhere to be seen at the United Center on the final night of the Democratic National Convention, but balloons were hurled at Harris, widening her slim polling lead and infuriating Donald Trump on social media.
Still, Biden’s fingerprints are everywhere, mocking Republicans who thought they had finally beaten him.
It was only a few weeks ago that the Republican surge finally seemed to have ensnared Biden, who had weathered efforts by the Trump White House to block his 2020 presidential run, a failed Republican impeachment inquiry and a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents largely unscathed.
And Biden, hurt by his dismal and erratic performance in last month’s debate with Trump, managed to stump his opponent one last time, throwing a lateral pass to Harris late in the game as the Republican was celebrating in the end zone.
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“They’re incompetent,” said Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. “The Republican Party doesn’t have the capacity to accommodate Kamala Harris because Donald Trump is the leader of the party.”
After six years as the object of Trump’s obsession, Biden may have come back to the top through Harris’ burgeoning campaign, some observers say.
“The tides have certainly turned in Michigan. A month ago Trump was leading Biden by 6 or 7 points and now he’s trailing by several points,” said former Republican congressman Fred Upton, who served in the House for more than 30 years and retired last year. “The enthusiasm for Harris-Waltz is contagious across the board, and Trump hasn’t changed his message, so now it’s going to be hard for him to change course.”
Hunting Biden
Trump has been obsessed with Biden for years.
Biden was a centrist former vice president when he last ran for president in April 2019. Polls saw “Joe from Scranton” as the biggest threat to then-President Trump.
On July 25, 2019, during an Oval Office call about U.S. military aid to Ukraine, President Trump urged newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky to “serve our interests” by announcing a criminal investigation into Biden and his son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian energy company. Trump suggested that U.S. aid depended on it.
The request spurred efforts by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to discredit Biden over his son’s business dealings, leading to a raft of Ukrainian corruption exposés, none of which landed on Biden. Instead, Trump was impeached by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives for blackmailing Zelensky, and acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate.
January 6th Riot
Biden defeated Trump in November 2020 by receiving a record 81 million votes, while Trump received 74 million, the second-highest number in the country.
Trump claimed voter fraud, but his claims have been rejected by courts across the country. On January 6, a frenzied mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, delaying the certification of Biden’s victory but allowing the new president to remain in office. Trump was impeached a second time and acquitted, but is currently facing federal and Georgia criminal charges for trying to overturn the election results.
But the pursuit continued.
The ‘cursed’ Biden impeachment inquiry
In 2022, Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives and launched their own impeachment inquiry targeting Biden and his adult son, Hunter, who were the subject of an ongoing Justice Department investigation during the Trump administration.
The Republicans had their star witness, FBI informant Alexander Smirnoff, who told investigators that Biden and his son each pocketed $5 million in bribes from Ukraine. Trump, House Republicans and Fox News hosts made memes about the so-called “Biden crime family.”
Then came disaster: In February, David Weiss, the Trump-appointed prosecutor who prosecuted Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges, announced the arrest of Smirnoff, who the Justice Department said lied to the FBI about the Bidens at the behest of “officials with ties to Russian intelligence.”
As the Democratic National Convention got underway in Chicago last Monday, House Republicans released a promised report that fell short of the impeachment it had been promised, accusing Biden of helping family members accept payments from foreign interests by attending dinners and speaking on phone calls.
“They have cursed themselves,” said Norm Eisen, who served as special counsel during Trump’s first impeachment trial. “I have never seen legislative leaders launch such a flimsy impeachment inquiry. It was a disgrace.”
Dam cracks
President Biden faced off against his own special counsel, Robert Hur, who was asked to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents after revelations that Obama-era documents were stored in Biden’s garage and office.
Hoare recommended that Biden not be indicted, but in a February report made a shocking statement describing the 81-year-old president as an elderly man with “diminished capacities,” including memory loss. Democrats were outraged, and the White House invoked executive privilege to block House Republicans from obtaining an audio recording of Hoare’s interview with Biden.
Republicans jumped in. “Anyone who is so incompetent to be held accountable for mishandling classified information has no right to be in the Oval Office,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said along with other Republican leaders.
TV debate fiasco
Biden ignored Harr’s gaffe and set about his exhausting reelection bid.
Then, in his debate with Trump on June 27, Biden’s weak performance and incoherent answers horrified Democrats and delighted Republicans, and a string of verbal gaffes only heightened concern.
Amazingly, the campaign was repeated over a period of eight days.
President Trump survived an assassination attempt on July 13 and, in an unprecedented, iconic moment, emerged bloodied and enraged from a throng of Secret Service agents, picked Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate, and accepted the Republican presidential nomination before a rapturous crowd in Milwaukee.
Biden, meanwhile, was busy dealing with the coronavirus pandemic while his approval ratings slumped and Democrats who had warned of a Trump landslide victory started to panic. The president had one card left to play, and he held onto it until Sunday, July 21. Biden withdrew from the race and named Harris his top choice to succeed him.
Four and a half weeks later, and despite a close race in the polls, Trump and his party still have not recovered.
“Harris was on the receiving end of an onslaught that left her defenseless, but there was very little time left when the DNC made the pass,” Upton said of the Democratic National Convention. “Now, all that’s left to save the exhausted Trump campaign is a Hail Mary.”
Trump, endearing himself to the candidate he predicted would win handily, began complaining that Harris had won the nomination thanks to a “coup,” let alone Biden’s endorsement.
“Donald Trump is in a position where he’s fighting a ghost,” said Steele, the former Republican chairman.
And Biden outwitted his opponents again.
“He keeps turning the noose around,” Eisen said, “because there’s no noose.”