Joe Biden has found an unlikely defender in Fox & Friends host Lawrence Jones as some Democrats are blaming the president for Kamala Harris’ election loss to Donald Trump.
Biden’s critics say that his initial decision to run for re-election, only dropping out after a brutal debate showing against Trump, hurt Harris’ candidacy as the subsequent—and unelected—Democratic nominee.
But, during the Thursday edition of Fox & Friends, the self-described Libertarian host argued that Democrats’ fingers shouldn’t be pointing at the president.
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“I think it’s totally unfair of the Democrats to blame Joe Biden for all of this,” he said. “First of all, you all used him and then when you all didn’t need to use him anymore, you all got rid of him. Also the whole plan of Joe Biden was for him to only serve one term. That’s what he said, but Kamala was so bad. She was so bad. So he could not pass the torch. And as we have seen since this election why she was so bad.”
Biden, who was 78 when he took office, had in 2019 reportedly mulled stating publicly that he would only serve one term if elected—although he never did. He did say, at a rally during the Democratic primaries in 2020, “Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else.”
Then he decided to run for re-election anyway.
Behind closed doors, some members of Harris’ team are reportedly blaming Biden for the loss.
“We ran the best campaign we could, considering Joe Biden was president,” one anonymous aide told Politico. “Joe Biden is the singular reason Kamala Harris and Democrats lost tonight.”
Harris, who scrambled to compress a presidential campaign into 100 days after taking over, had reportedly sought to distance herself from Biden—and his low approval ratings—in the run-up to the election, even as he tried to campaign on her behalf.
She publicly conceded the election to Trump yesterday, maintaining, though, that “the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people” was not over.
