Who is more extreme Joe Biden or Kamala Harris? Their former colleagues weigh in
Democratic lawmakers are fiercely defending Vice President Kamala Harris as she takes on former President Donald Trump, despite her reputation as the “most liberal” senator.
Republicans are criticizing the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and former California senator for calling him a “radical” progressive from San Francisco.
They say she is even more progressive than self-described Democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
And millions of people are sending out ads reminding American voters how she championed health care for illegal immigrants, banned fracking and ended private health insurance.
However, her former Democratic colleagues argue that she has always been a “centrist” and moderate.
“Her record is very centrist,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told DailyMail.com this week.
After Vice President Kamala Harris’ surprise rise to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, her former colleagues in the Senate, where she served from 2017 to 2021, have praised her centrist and presidential political record. Republicans, meanwhile, have been quick to call her a radical progressive from San Francisco who held the Senate’s most left-leaning record
“She’s for fighting climate change. She’s for protecting a woman’s right to decide when and if she wants to have children. She’s for lowering the price of groceries and gas. It’s all pretty mainstream,” Blumenthal said of her record.
When asked if she was more liberal than Biden, he replied, “I don’t use those labels.”
“I think she’s been an extraordinarily pragmatic leader who has introduced some of the most bipartisan legislation we’ve seen come out of Congress since LBJ,” said New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, who ran against Harris and Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary.
Harris laughed at GovTrack’s rating of her as the “most liberal” senator when asked about it during a 2020 interview with 60 Minutes, blaming then-vice presidential nominee Mike Pence for bringing up the topic during their debate.
Senate Democratic leader Dick Durbin told DailyMail.com he doesn’t consider Harris to be more left-wing than Biden, but added: “It depends on the issue.”
Asked whether Harris is as “extreme” as Republicans portray her, Durbin replied, “I mean, we’re running out of descriptions that strike fear into the hearts of Americans.”
“It’s not going to work,” he continued.
Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia told the Daily Mail, “I’ll let the experts do their thing,” but he said Republicans haven’t really found a way to attack Harris, and that calling her extreme and “radical” doesn’t work.
“I think they’re trying to put their best foot forward as they figure out how to frame a criminal for the prosecutor.”
When asked if he thinks Harris is more left-wing than the president, Warnock replied, “This election is not about right and left, it’s about right and wrong.”
Democratic senators like Blumenthal and Booker gave Harris’s record glowing reviews, saying she has a mediocre record. Booker even compared her record to former President Lyndon B. Johnson — a famously centrist Democrat
Republicans argue that Harris’s record in the Senate is more left-wing than that of self-described Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders
Veteran Senator Durbin said he wouldn’t consider Harris more liberal than Biden overall, but that it depends on the issue
Democratic Sen. John Tester of Montana, who is locked in a neck-and-neck race with a Republican challenger in a red-leaning state, said “s***, I don’t know” when asked whether the president or vice president is more politically extreme.
The Montanan has not yet endorsed Harris for president and is believed to be holding off because of the politically dangerous implications his support for her could have for his re-election campaign.
“It’s hard to say,” Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan told the Daily Mail. “They’re both ideally suited. One is president and one is vice president. So they’ve done a great job.”
Meanwhile, Republicans declared Harris the more liberal of the two White House administrators.
“Kamala Harris is definitely more liberal,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told DailyMail.com. “You look back at her 2020 presidential campaign. She’s about as radical as they come.”
Yet she is also responsible for Biden and Harris’ policies in the White House, he said.
“Joe Biden just reminds everybody of them, their uncle. So he’s less threatening. His policies, of course, their policies have been the same. It’s the administration’s policies.”
Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) said, “When Kamala Harris was in the Senate, she was voted the most liberal member of the United States Senate.”
“Her voting record in the Senate is more liberal than Bernie Sanders’.”
“And why do you say? Look at some of the things she’s proposed: abolishing private health insurance in America, yet giving free health care to illegal immigrants.”
The Wyoming Republican called Harris a “dangerously liberal” San Francisco Democrat, adding that she is “just as incompetent as Biden” and “equally responsible” for high inflation and allowing 10 million migrants into the US.
‘Well, in the [2020] “In the primaries, she was more left-wing,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told DailyMail.com. “When she ran for president, she jumped on every liberal horse that came her way.”
“I don’t think Joe signed up for Medicare for all or the Green New Deal,” he added.