The current and former US presidents had a campaign chat at a funeral service
US President Joe Biden has apparently shared his misgivings about Vice-President Kamala Harris’ campaign with his old boss Barack Obama, a professional lip-reader told the New York Post.
Biden and Obama were filmed at the memorial service for Ethel Kennedy, wife of former US Senator Robert F. Kennedy, in Washington on Wednesday. The cameras did not catch the content of their conversation, so the Post hired an expert.
“She’s not as strong as me,” said Biden, according to the lip-reader.
“Yeah, we’ll get it in time,” Biden seems to have replied.
The conversation was translated by Jeremy Freeman, a London-based forensic lip reader. Born deaf, Freeman has served as a certified police and media expert for 16 years.
According to Freeman’s transcript, there is no mention of Harris by name, but it’s unclear who else the two Democrats may have been discussing. He also described the conversation as “very supportive” and said he detected “no tension” between Obama and Biden.
Biden spokesman Andrew Bates “scoffed” at the Post’s request for comment, asking the outlet if their “usual right-wing soothsayer” was on leave.
“Only President Biden and President Obama know what they discussed, but this certainly wasn’t it,” Bates insisted.
An unnamed source close to Obama also said that the matter was between him and Biden alone, adding that “any assertion otherwise is ridiculous.”
One former Biden White House official, who is now working to support Harris, told the Post that it’s “not even like [Biden] to say that.”
Another Democrat, likewise anonymous, commented that Harris was “not a strong alternative to Biden” and that the party is now “stuck with a less likable sinking ship.”
Democrats quashed all primary challenges to Biden – including from Ethel’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – and had him debate Republican candidate Donald Trump at the end of June, before suddenly declaring he was too old and cognitively impaired to run again, but not enough to resign.
For three weeks, Biden insisted that he was not dropping out, before announcing he would, via his personal X (formerly Twitter) account, on a Sunday evening. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly led the “mutiny” within the party. She and Biden have not spoken since.
While Harris enjoyed a “honeymoon” in the media and the polls following the Democrats’ convention in August, the most recent polling has shown her behind Trump in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.