Vice President Kamala Harris called Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, whom former President Trump chose as his running mate Monday, and congratulated him after the announcement.
‘Vice President Harris reached out to Senator Vance and left a message to congratulate him on his selection, welcome him to the race and express her hope that the two can meet in the vice presidential debate proposed by CBS News,’ a Biden campaign official told Fox News.
After months of teasing his pick, Trump revealed Vance as his running mate selection in a Truth Social post on the opening afternoon of the Republican National Convention.
In May, Trump accepted a vice presidential debate on behalf of his future running mate to be hosted on Fox News. However, the Biden campaign has only been willing to do the debate on CBS.
While no vice presidential debate has been confirmed yet, in the case that Vance and Harris do face off, it may be the vice president’s worst-case scenario. President Biden and former President Trump agreed to two presidential debates. The first was hosted by CNN on June 27 and the second will be hosted by ABC on Sept. 10.
‘I think JD Vance would pose the greatest threat [to] Kamala Harris, in some respects. I mean he’s an incredible debater,’ Ashley Etienne, Harris’ former communications director, previously told CNN.
‘I think he has this quality that makes him seem palpable to that one to two percent that actually might vote or that is undecided, that will actually pay attention to the debates because most people don’t pay attention to the debates,’ she explained.
She described the 39-year-old senator as both ‘super smart’ and ‘quick-witted,’ which she noted could be a problem for Harris.
This could pose a particular issue for the vice president, who has become known for ‘word salads’ or rambling monologues that often find their way onto social media. One such clip going viral on TikTok and other social media platforms features Harris asking, ‘You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’
After laughing, she continues to say, ‘You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.’
Harris has even been the subject of a Saturday Night Live skit, which made fun of the habit. ‘It’s a process I call speaking without thinking,’ joked Daily Show correspondent Desi Lydic, playing the role of the vice president’s ‘holistic thought adviser, Dahlia Rose Hibiscus.’
‘It’s not about the destination of the thought, it’s about the journey and how many words you use to describe the journey,’ she added.
One author, Elaina Plott Calabro, who profiled Harris for months at the Atlantic remarked, ‘She’s a very poor communicator when the parameters are quite wide.’
In a setting such as a debate, where communication is one of the most important elements, its unclear whether Harris would be able to stack up.