Kamala Harris “very possibly” could beat Donald Trump in the US presidential race, the German Chancellor declared on Wednesday risking accusations of wading into American politics.
Olaf Scholz, who has been unusually direct in his endorsement of US President Joe Biden before the latter dropped his reelection bid last weekend, stopped short of endorsing Democrat Ms Harris over Republican Trump but he appeared to leave little doubt over who he would want to win the November election.
“The election campaign in the USA will certainly be exciting, now with a slightly new line-up and a new constellation,” Mr Scholz told an annual summer news conference on Wednesday.
“I think Kamala Harris may win the election, but the American voters will decide”. National leaders normally steer clear of making predictions about elections in other countries.
Mr Biden was due on Wednesday to make a televised address seeking to burnish his legacy and reassure the American people that he will provide stable leadership in his remaining six months in office.
The Oval Office speech will mark the 81-year-old Democrat’s first extended remarks since his dramatic announcement that he was exiting the White House race and endorsing his vice president, Harris, to take the fight to Donald Trump.
Flying back to Washington from Delaware on Tuesday after he was forced to self-isolate with Covid, Mr Biden told reporters on the tarmac that he was “well”.
When asked later when he got off Air Force One what his message would be, he said “watch and listen” but the outlines were made clear by the lame-duck president’s team as he sought to explain his decision to end his re-election bid following mounting doubts about his fitness to serve since a debate debacle against Mr Trump.
He was also expected to tout progress at home and abroad during his single term despite voter concern about high rates of inflation and immigration, which could hamper Ms Harris’s chances against the former president.
Mr Trump’s Republican campaign filed a complaint to US networks insisting he deserved equal airtime to the president, labelling the Oval Office address a partisan broadcast, and another to the Federal Election Commission against Ms Harris inheriting Mr Biden’s campaign funds of more than $90m.
The vice president is almost certainly the new Democratic nominee after amassing the support of enough delegates to take over the baton for November’s election, but there too Trump allies are threatening legal trouble, arguing that Mr Biden’s late withdrawal after the primaries amounts to a subversion of democracy.
For Democrats, the anti-democrat remains Mr Trump given his vows of retribution against opponents and threats of political violence if he loses the election and many of his supporters now see him as divinely inspired after he survived a recent assassination attempt, upping the tension still more for November.
The former president’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, faced criticism after a video clip resurfaced from 2021 when he questioned Ms Harris and other Democrats as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made”.
Harris campaign spokesman James Singer, referring to a Right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term, said: “Ugly, personal attacks from JD Vance and Donald Trump are in line with their dangerous Project 2025 agenda to ban abortion, decimate our democracy, and gut Social Security.”
Mr Trump was due on Wednesday to visit the swing state of North Carolina for his first campaign rally since Mr Biden bowed out.
Both Mr Vance and Ms Harris were also hitting the campaign trail anew, missing a contentious speech in Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which is attracting large protests and boycotts by dozens of Democratic politicians.
Mr Netanyahu is due to meet Mr Biden and Ms Harris on Thursday, and Mr Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Friday. (BusinessDay)
