A rare Biden campaign trail appearance reveals a delicate balancing act for him and Harris

(CNN) — President Joe Biden acknowledged Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris wouldn’t act as a carbon copy of his own administration, tacitly nodding to a key challenge his vice president faces as she enters the final sprint of her campaign: How to distinguish herself from his record.

Delivered during what has become a rare campaign stop for the incumbent, Biden said Harris’ loyalty to him up to now doesn’t mean she won’t forge her own way going ahead.

“Every president has to cut their own path. That’s what I did. I was loyal to Barack Obama, but I cut my own path as president. That’s what Kamala is going to do,” Biden said at Democratic Party dinner at a union banquet hall in Philadelphia on Tuesday. “She’s been loyal so far, but she’s gonna cut her own path.”

“Donald Trump’s perspective,” he added, “is old and failed and quite frankly thoroughly totally dishonest.”

The comments highlight part of the balancing act Biden and Harris are each trying to strike as she faces some pressure to distinguish herself from the current president.

After declaring in September he would be “on the road” from Labor Day onward, Biden’s campaign schedule this fall has been conspicuously light – hampered, in part, by a string of urgent domestic and foreign crises requiring his attention, but also complicated by the sense that his presence on the trail could remind voters of the page Harris is trying to turn.

The event on Tuesday – a ticketed dinner to raise money for Philadelphia Democrats – was one of the few political appearances the president has made since Harris secured the Democratic nomination.

“I’m one of the few people in American history who has been vice president and president,” Biden said as he stood before signs bearing the name “Kamala.” “And I know both jobs, what they take and I can tell you, Kamala Harris has been a great vice president. She’ll be a great president as well.”

Less than three weeks until the election, the campaign and White House have yet to detail what Biden’s campaign schedule will look like in the lead up to November 5. One deployment under consideration, a source close to the campaign said, is a tour through Pennsylvania with the state’s governor, Josh Shapiro. Biden himself previewed such a swing weeks ago in an interview.

Biden retains sway among White, working-class voters and older Americans, Harris’ team believes, and plans to utilize him to mobilize those blocs in the race’s final weeks, sources said.

Still, how and when to deploy the still-unpopular incumbent on behalf of his vice president remains a work in progress as Harris’ team looks to seize the mantle of change.

Harris deploys Democratic heavyweights, but Biden largely stays off the trail so far

In the past week, the campaign has deployed Democratic heavyweights like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to court voters on behalf of Harris.

Obama has four campaign events on the books for the next week, including kicking off early voting in Wisconsin with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz at a Madison rally on Tuesday. Clinton will make a similar appearance with Walz, Harris’ vice presidential running mate, in North Carolina this Thursday.

First lady Dr. Jill Biden also embarked on a five-day, five battleground state swing of her own this past week, stumping for Harris for the first time since the vice president replaced her husband at the top of the ticket.

It’s not that Biden has disappeared after dropping his bid for president. In many cases, the duties of the job have pulled him away from politics, including United Nations meetings in New York, two hurricanes, an escalating Middle East conflict and a once-rescheduled trip abroad. A planned visit to his hometown Scranton, Pennsylvania – the type of place where many Democrats believe he can influence votes – was canceled last month as Hurricane Helene battered parts of the South.

The dual hurricanes consumed much of Biden’s attention in the past two weeks, including a trip to the disaster zone in Florida on Sunday. The president’s goal was to show the federal government had a handle on the response and, in turn, heading off any political attacks about their efforts.

Amid the crises, the president has been receiving televised briefings and made a first-ever appearance in the White House briefing room.

That surprise press conference didn’t land particularly well among Harris’ team, CNN previously reported. The vice president herself had just begun a campaign event in Michigan when he emerged before reporters.

As he was walking out, Biden couldn’t help but respond to a reporter asking whether he would rethink his decision to drop his bid for a second term.

“I’m back in,” he said with a grin before disappearing into the West Wing.

A benefit to Biden keeping to his day job

If there are some grumbles about coordination, many of Harris’ aides see a benefit to the president carrying out his day job, including visits this month to battleground states affected by the hurricane.

“There is some inherent value to him being president and doing the work in places like Georgia and North Carolina,” a source close to the campaign said.

While Harris can rely on a constellation of high-profile surrogates, one Democrat close to the campaign noted, only one person can be president.

Biden isn’t the first incumbent forced to find a balance between campaigning for a would-be successor and fulfilling the duties of office. President George W. Bush wasn’t a frequent presence for Sen. John McCain on the campaign trail in 2008, weighed down by the spiraling financial crisis that enveloped that election.

Then-Vice President Al Gore similarly placed some distance between himself and Clinton when he was running for the top job in 2000 – in no small part because of the sex scandal that engulfed the end of Clinton’s presidency.

For Biden, however, the dynamic is made unusual by the fact he had once planned on running himself. His decision to drop his bid forced a rapid realignment of presidential priorities, including adding new foreign travel and events touting his record, at the same time Harris was assuming the Democratic nomination.

Biden has traveled to battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin on official business to tout federal projects he and Harris have worked on together, including lead pipe removal and rural energy investments.

Since Harris became the Democratic nominee, the two have appeared at a campaign event together one time as they rallied union workers on Labor Day in Pittsburgh. Advisers have yet to say whether they’ll hold joint events in the closing stretch of the election though some have previously indicated they’d likely take a divide and conquer approach.

Political realities weigh on Harris and Biden

After nearly half-a-century in politics, Biden is fully aware of the delicate decisions that govern campaign season. He has long said – usually as a joke – that he’s willing to campaign for or against his favored candidate, “whichever will help the most.”

No one is suggesting Biden would help Harris by campaigning against her. But for a candidate eager to look to the future – particularly compared to her older rival – having Biden on the trail makes for a tricky balance.

This week, Harris has begun suggesting at campaign stops that Trump is too “weak and unstable” to serve as president, using his campaign’s refusal to release detailed health records or allow an additional debate as evidence he is hiding a medical or mental ailment.

That is exactly the same attack Trump once used on Biden when he was still the candidate, underscoring the dramatic shifts in campaign trail dynamics since Biden withdrew.

Harris herself remains loyal to Biden, both in public when asked about his record and in private as she ramps up her own schedule heading into the campaign’s final sprint.

She hasn’t hesitated to join him during official briefings, including last week as they received updates on a pair of hurricanes bearing down on the US or amid escalating tensions in the Middle East. In recent months, they’ve appeared at White House events on health care and curbing gun violence in the country.

“I’ll yield to the president – I mean, the vice president,” Biden said to laughter during a hurricane briefing in the Roosevelt Room on Friday as he handed off to Harris, who was in Arizona but joining the meeting virtually.

Yet she has also looked for opportunities to distinguish herself from Biden and has gotten tripped up when questioned how she might do the job differently. Asked that during an appearance last week on “The View,” Harris initially said there was “not a thing that comes to mind.”

Later, she returned to the query to say she would name a Republican to her Cabinet, something Biden did not do. But Republicans quickly seized on the answer, airing the clip during Trump rallies in Pennsylvania.

Fellow Democrats say Biden is right to embrace his own record as he departs public service. But they say Harris should also seize opportunities to remind voters she is her own person.

“This is a totally different person. So, I’m excited by Kamala Harris. I mean, I think Joe Biden did a fine job as president. There’s many things I agree with him on, and many I disagree with him on. But I’m very excited by what Kamala Harris brings,” said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, last week on CNN.

“When she talks about the opportunity economy, which talks about small businesses, that’s something that I’m sure Joe Biden might like, but it’s not who he is. It’s not what he talks about. He talks about factories and building stuff, and God bless him for it,” he continued. “But Kamala Harris is talking about the future, and she’s the change candidate we need.”

CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg contributed to this report.

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