Buried in a recent scathing CNN story about Vice President Kamala Harris’ endless woes is a line that has sent shockwaves across Washington, D.C.
Two CNN reporters penned a piece on Sunday headlined “Exasperation and dysfunction: Inside Kamala Harris’ frustrating start as vice president.” The article cited nearly three dozen officials in Harris’ office and the White House as their sources, and few had nice things to say.
But there was one passage that caught everyone’s eye.
“Defenders and people who care for Harris are getting frantic. When they’re annoyed, some pass around a recent Onion story mocking her lack of more substantive work, one with the headline, “White House Urges Kamala Harris To Sit At Computer All Day In Case Emails Come Through.” When they’re depressed, they bat down the Aaron Sorkin-style rumor that Biden might try to replace her by nominating her to a Supreme Court vacancy. That chatter has already reached top levels of the Biden orbit, according to one person who’s heard it,” said the piece.
That small “rumor” prompted The Daily Mail to write: “Harris’ approval rating has plunged even further than Biden’s in recent months, with rumors swirling that the president is considering appointing her to the Supreme Court as a backdoor method of selecting a new VP.”
Now, as CNN noted, it is indeed an “Aaron Sorkin-style rumor,” referring to the writer of the hit show “The West Wing.” Dramatic things were always happening on the show, but things are much slower — and much more boring — inside the Beltway.
Still, these kinds of things have a way of spiraling. And Harris’ dismal first year as vice president likely won’t quash the rumors.
Harris’ approval rating has plunged to just 28%, according to a poll of registered voters released last week by USA Today and Suffolk University. Biden’s rating hit yet another a new low, plummeting to 38%, but all eyes are on Harris as the person most likely to succeed Biden and run for president in 2024.
Harris basement-dwelling numbers are unprecedented, Business Insider reported.
“The closest comparison – which involves slightly different methodology and margins of error – would be former Vice President Dick Cheney, the most unpopular US vice president in polling history. He bottomed out at 30% in Gallup’s tracking survey, but that wasn’t until the end of former President George W. Bush’s second term in 2007,” the news site reported.
The notion isn’t that odd, though. Democrats immediately began talking about “packing the court” — meaning to add more justices to the Supreme Court — shortly after Biden took office.
In April, Biden announced he had created a commission to study packing the court. The New York Times reported that Biden made the decision to move forward with studying the partisan plan because he was “under pressure from activists.”
But the move is so toxic that even socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) doesn’t support it, warning that if Democrats do so, then “the next time the Republicans are in power they will do the same thing.”