US Vice-President Kamala Harris has said that she is ready to serve and people around her know about her “capacity to lead”. This remark comes close on the heels of Republican candidate Nikki Haley claiming that 2024 would see a female President of the United States (POTUS).
Harris’ remarks gain significance amid questions over the age of President Joe Biden and recent comments by a special counsel about his weak memory, which has been denied by the White House.
Also, Haley, the other Indian-origin American politician in the race to the White House this year, said in a recent interview, “This is about the fact that we are going to have a female president of the United States, and either it will be me or it will be Kamala Harris.”
“I am ready to serve. There’s no question about that,” Harris told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.
The financial daily said that the interview was conducted two days before the special counsel’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents amplified concerns about the 81-year-old incumbent president’s mental acuity.
The report said that Biden displayed “diminished faculties” in interviews and called him an “elderly man with a poor memory”.
Everyone who saw her on the job, Harris said, “walks away fully aware of my capacity to lead”, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The vice-president, however, described her boss as an “incredible leader”, according to a statement released by the Biden-Harris campaign.
“I have been with Joe in the Oval Office when the cameras are there and when they are not. I have watched him bring folks together across the nation and across the world. He is an incredible leader,” she said.
Harris said that the comments made by the special counsel about Biden were unnecessary, inaccurate, and inappropriate. “The way the president’s demeanour was characterised in that report could not be more wrong. It was clearly politically motivated,” she said.
“When it comes to the role and responsibility of a prosecutor in a situation like that, we should expect a higher level of integrity than what we saw. Nevertheless, I want you to know the Joe that I know,” said Harris.