New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker on Sunday tried to defend Veep Kamala Harris for portraying herself as the candidate of change despite coming from the incumbent administration.
CNN “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper told Booker (D-NJ) on Sunday, “She’s the incumbent vice president.
“Democrats have controlled the White House for 12 of the last 16 years. How can Democrats talk about a new chapter, turning the page? You guys are the ones writing the book,” Tapper said.
Booker shot back, “Right now, we see the MAGA Republicans in Congress killing all kind of pragmatic policies that we need to get done.”
The Garden State Democrat claimed the doomed Senate border security deal was an example of GOP failure and highlighted the influence that former President Donald Trump still enjoys in the nation’s politics.
“[Trump’s] influence is egregious and incredible, from his appointment of three people to the Supreme Court that are now rolling back the most fundamental of our rights and freedoms, like bodily autonomy and reproductive rights,” Booker argued.
During last week’s Democratic National Convention, Harris sought to bill herself as the candidate who would help Americans vexed by the growing cost of living, the border crisis and more.
Her nomination acceptance speech marked the latest in her effort to redefine herself before the general electorate with less than three months to go before election night, when she faces off against Trump for the White House.
She told the crowd that the “election has a precious, fleeting opportunity, a chance to chart a new way forward.”
Trump fired back afterward, asking, “Why didn’t she do the things she’s complaining about?
“She didn’t do any of it. She could have done it three and a half years ago. She could do it tonight by leaving the auditorium and going to Washington, DC, and closing the border. She doesn’t need a bill. I didn’t have a bill. I closed the border,” he told Fox News after her speech in regards to the border.
Since ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket, Harris has been engaged in a delicate balancing act of trying not to abandon President Biden on policy while also trying to make stylistic deviations to freshen up her appeal to voters.
Perhaps her loudest applause line at the convention was when she told the crowd how she and Biden have been “working around the clock” to end the war raging in the Gaza Strip.
The Israel-Hamas war has been an issue that has splintered the party’s progressive base and has long dogged Biden, who conveyed a similar sentiment earlier in the week during his speech.
“She’s been anguished over this conflict from the first reports of the Hamas attacks,” Booker explained to Tapper. “I’m very encouraged, as Kamala Harris is running for president right now, she is still part of an administration that is doing an extraordinary job trying to end this nightmare and stop it from expanding into the region.”
Harris assured DNC attendees that she and Biden are scrambling to ensure “Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity.”
Booker sidestepped a question about whether he felt it was a mistake for Democrats not to have a Palestinian speaker at the convention, something that triggered protests.
Despite polling looking much more optimistic for Democrats in the presidential election, Booker contended that Harris is correct to view herself as the underdog.
“We are in a neck-and-neck race, the underdogs. It still is a Goliath out there that we’re fighting,” he said. “It is like they’re up by a field goal. But yet this is a winnable election. We still have the momentum and the energy.”
The New Jersey senator also praised Democrats for seeking to inject joyfulness into their convention.
“I think we’re just tired of negative cynicism about America in general,” Booker stressed, noting his travels around the world. “There is not a place I go where people don’t envy our nation. We have so much to be proud of.”
“That doesn’t mean that we don’t have real challenges and real problems. But energy begets energy. And negativity and darkness and doomsaying only creates more of that energy. It’s time that we take pride,” he said.