Incoming California Sen. Laphonza Butler joined other Democrats in slamming critics of the “historic” Vice President Kamala Harris for the “disrespectful” treatment she’s been given.
Detractors should “cut the bulls—” according to Butler, who can thank Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., for tapping her to fill the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat.
“It’s disrespectful,” Butler, once an adviser to Harris, told The New York Times in an interview.
“And the thing that makes it more disrespectful is that we’re talking about a historic VP who has been a high-quality partner and asset to the country at a time when everything is at stake. Right now is the time to respect what she’s done and what she brings,” she added.
In the piece published Tuesday, reporter Astead Herndon noted how Harris is still trying to “make a case for herself” three years after being in office.
“Three years after she and Biden were presented as a package deal, a two-for-one special that included a younger, nonwhite candidate to counterbalance Biden’s shortcomings, Democrats have not embraced the president in waiting. In interviews with more than 75 people in the vice president’s orbit, there is little agreement about Harris at all, except an acknowledgment that she has a public perception problem, a self-fulfilling spiral of bad press and bad polls, compounded by the realities of racism and sexism,” he wrote.
Butler was joined by other Harris allies who spoke about the VP as the Times piece highlighted reactions from prominent Democrats to President Joe Biden’s 2024 running mate.
“She’s the vice president of the United States. And when people say to me, ‘Well, why isn’t she doing this or that?’ I say, ‘Because she’s the vice president. That’s the job description. You don’t do that much,’” former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Pelosi throws VP Kamala Harris under the bus, backs up, and runs her over — REPEATEDLY! https://t.co/FpEwx3hxb7 via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) September 14, 2023
Though Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren released a statement in support of a Biden-Harris ticket, she was not so convincing about Harris before that.
“I really want to defer to what makes Biden comfortable on his team,” she said in an interview back in January. “I’ve known Kamala for a long time. I like Kamala. I knew her back when she was an attorney general and I was still teaching and we worked on the housing crisis together, so we go way back. But they need – they have to be a team, and my sense is they are – I don’t mean that by suggesting I think there are any problems. I think they are.”
According to an NBC News poll in June, Harris scored a net -17 rating, “the lowest for any vice president in the poll’s history.”
But LaTosha Brown, founder of Black Voters Matter, sees a deliberate smearing of Harris, even within the administration.
“I think there have been saboteurs within the administration,” she told the New York Times. “I think that they are worried about the age contrast. And they are worried about Kamala outshining Biden.”
In the Times piece, Herndon reported that “the people closest to Harris, the tight-knit group of Black women in national Democratic politics who helped make her Biden’s choice for vice president, are increasingly becoming incensed with how she’s being treated. Their disgust is as close as you’ll get to hearing it from Harris herself.”
“In nearly three years in office, Harris has stood dutifully by Biden’s side,” he added. “But in terms of her own political profile, she has remained a vacuum of negative space, a vessel for supporters and detractors to fill as they choose, not least because she refuses to do so herself.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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