As I watched the vice presidential debate last week, I found myself getting more and more infuriated as Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican nominee, kept repeating his mantra that Vice President Kamala Harris could have done something in the last three-and-a-half years to affect change in the economy or in border policy. More than once, he referred to her as the “border czar.”
“She’s not the president!” I screamed at the television. “She can’t make policy!”
And she’s not even the “border czar.” President Joe Biden tasked her with investigating the root causes of the surge of South American immigration. The actual person in charge of the border is Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (who was impeached by Congress early this year).
Let me scream this again, in all caps if necessary: “SHE’S NOT THE PRESIDENT!”
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It is not the “Harris-Biden administration,” as both Vance and former President Donald Trump keep repeating. And it’s certainly not the “Kamala Harris administration,” as Vance dubbed it in Tuesday’s debate. President Biden was and still is in control. It’s ludicrous to think Biden would allow his vice president to make policy.
Trump certainly never did. In fact, he never listened to any advice he disagreed with, whether from military generals with years of experience or from any of the people in the CIA, FBI and the rest of the intelligence community. He always thought he knew best and vilified anyone who disagreed with him.
As Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, pointed out during the debate, the only reason that Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, was not on the ticket now was because he defied Trump’s demand by certifying the 2020 election results, as he is required to do under the Constitution.
It’s interesting to note that during the earlier presidential debate between Trump and Harris, when Trump was asked about Vance’s public assertion that Trump would veto a national abortion ban, Trump answered: “I didn’t discuss it with JD.” So whatever control Vance thinks Harris has over Biden, he doesn’t seem to even have Trump’s ear.
Vance said in last week’s debate Trump left the White House peacefully as President Biden was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021. No, Trump left like a petulant child. After refusing to attend the inauguration (a first for any modern American president) he scurried away with boxes of classified records.
This sort of behavior has been characteristic of what Trump has displayed ad nauseum since 2016: protest if the result is unfavorable to you; spread the idea that elections are rigged if you don’t win. He’s parroting these same lies in advance of the 2024 election, saying that the only way he can lose is if there is massive fraud.
In the wee hours of Nov. 4, 2020, as election results were still being calculated across the country, I watched the press conference given by then-President Trump in which he claimed he’d already won and demanded that the counting stop. He listed all the states he claimed to have already won.
Of course, he was a bit premature. Four years later, he is still trying to readjudicate the 2020 election. Worse, there are too many MAGA Republicans, Vance included, who still refuse to admit he lost. Vance, asked the question directly during last week’s debate, changed the subject rather than answer.
Trump 2.0 is a bigger threat to the country now because he has stocked his inner circle with those who won’t refuse any demand, even if what he wants to do is illegal.
In a lengthy interview in the May edition of Time magazine, Trump, discussing “Biden-inspired” criminal charges against him, said: “I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others,”
I agree. The enemies from within are far more dangerous for the country than those from outside — starting with Trump and his sycophants.
I saw a meme recently in reference to Trump and Harris that said, in essence: If he was going to destroy the country, why didn’t he? If she was going to fix the country’s problems, why hasn’t she?
Because she’s not the president. And because he is poised to do a lot more damage the second time around.