Another day, another awkward moment for Kamala Harris.
This time, the vice president made a pre-recorded appearance at the 2024 BET Awards over the weekend in which she attempted to reference Kendrick Lamar and Drake’s recent rap feud while trying to get out the vote. Based on the internet reaction, she failed at both.
On Tuesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Andrew Klavan, editor of The New Jerusalem on Substack, to discuss Harris’ video and the problem she poses as Democrats contemplate pushing Joe Biden aside.
‘That Was Cringe’
In an apparent effort to shore up support with black voters, Harris appeared at Sunday’s BET Awards in a skit with host Taraji P. Henson. The two women could be seen discussing key issues of the 2024 election on a video call, while a “paid for by Biden/Harris” banner lingered on the left side of the screen.
After starting the FaceTime by acknowledging that they are both graduates of Howard University, the vice president asked the Empire actress what was on her mind. “Oh, Madam VP Harris, I’m worried about the election,” Henson sighed. “Women’s reproductive rights are on the line. Our Supreme Court is on the line. Our basic freedoms are being tested. Madam VP, I know you’ve been traveling across the country, what are you hearing?”
“Yeah, girl I’m out here in these streets,” Harris responded. “And let me tell you, you’re right, Taraji. There is so much at stake in this moment. The majority of us believe in freedom and equality. But these extremists, as they say, they ‘not like us.'”
For the uninitiated, the “not like us” line was a reference to Lamar’s chart-topping diss track about his rival Drake.
Elsewhere in the clip, Harris raised additional talking points. “There’s a full-on attack on our fundamental freedoms: The freedom to vote, the freedom to love who you love, the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom for a woman to make decisions about her own body and not having her government tell her what to do,” she said. She also accused the GOP of wanting to “turn back the clock on our hard-fought progress” and encouraged people to register to vote.
The clip was widely panned on social media and Megyn was inclined to agree. “That was, as the kids would say, cringe,” she declared. “One hundred percent.”
President Harris?
It remains to be seen whether Biden heeds the call of many on the left and in the media and lets someone else headline the 2024 ticket, but it seems pretty clear – at least as far as Megyn and Klavan are concerned – that Harris is not the answer.
“I’m not convinced that the elected Democrats are going to stand behind [Biden]… [but] they don’t want Kamala Harris,” Megyn said. “That’s the big question: What do you do with a problem like Kamala because nobody has wrestled with, ‘Great, we get rid of Joe. What do we do with her?’”
For starters, Klavan said it is a “problem” entirely of their own making. “They created this situation,” he said. “Joe Biden said he was going to appoint a minority woman to the vice presidency. He did. He forgot to ask about qualifications, and it was just a little mistake he made there because, obviously, Kamala Harris is not fit to be president.”
The issues Democrats must now wrestle with, according to Klavan, are (a) how to replace Harris without “violating the identity politics” that are so sacrosanct to the left and (b) how to find a consensus candidate despite the ideological extremes in the party.
“How do you find a politician who looks like a centrist but will allow the party to follow the left-wing agenda as Joe Biden has,” Klavan asked. “The mainstream of the Democrat party is very far left. They are not going to let some moderate come in there and change direction.”
While Klavan doesn’t think there is a clear contender, he acknowledged Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s name is on the rise. “She’s getting a lot of buzz,” He said. “I really dislike Gretchen Whitmer because of the way she behaved during the COVID crisis… but she’s a fairly popular governor… [in] a swing state so she might be their best bet.”
Megyn said there is a ticket with Whitmer on it that may check some additional boxes. “If they get rid of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and they decide to go with Gretchen Whitmer and [Georgia Sen.] Raphael Warnock, they can be like, ‘We recreated a black woman – we have one who is black and one who is a woman. There you go,'” she quipped. “That’s how they are. They are so obsessed with this stuff, they might do it.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Klavan by tuning in to episode 828 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.