Kilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a bonus episode of The Front Page, a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Joe Biden is stepping down from the US presidential election race. He says his decision to stand down is in the best interest of his party and the country. Biden has endorsed Kamala Harris, the current Vice President, to be the new Democratic candidate, along with a string of other key Democrats. It comes just four months before
Americans go to the polls. Today, on the Front Page, geopolitical analyst at the Democracy Project Jeffrey Miller is with us to explain what happens next. What do you make of biden decision to step down? Is this, as he said, in the best interest?
Look, it was a surprise, and yet not a surprise. The last three weeks have been dominated by all kinds of chatter about Joe Biden, whether he would continue. It all started with that disastrous debate on the twenty seventh of June, and it didn't really get any better after that.
Biden gave all kinds of one on one interviews that were designed to kind of shore up his position, but they only made things worse, and he continued to make gaff after gaff, the most significant of which was probably when he described the lot of Mezelenski as the president
of Russia. So it really didn't get better. In the midst of that, of course, you had the assassination on Donald Trump, and then the Republican National Convention last week, at which the Republicans look incredibly unified with their new vice presidential candidate jd Vance And in the end Biden's position became untenable. He got COVID and he regrouped with family and made that final decision to out of the race. In some ways, yes, you can give Joe Biden credit
for doing this, and I've seen various descriptions. I think Barack Obama described him as a patriot of the highest order. And yet it's all very very late, And this could have been done a year ago. If it had been done a year ago and Biden had made his decision, then I'm not going to stand for a second term. It would have been I think it would have been a courageous decision, and it would have given others in
the Democratic Party a chance against Carmala Harris. As it stands now, it's being done what three months out from the election or thereabouts, and it really leaves most challenges with really little hope. So essentially we're going to see a crown and a coronation of Carmala Harris. I don't think that's particularly democratic or small de democratic, as the Americans say, and I think you can blame some of the blame for that at Biden and his advisors, but
also at the Democratic Party. I mean, they went through a primary process last year and rubber stamped Joe Biden's candidacy, and yet it was clear that Biden was aging, it was having difficulties. It's been clear for the last year or more. There've been all kinds of videos circulating showing Joe Biden and some of his gaffes. These are not new.
While it may have come into sharper focus with this debate, this talk has been around for a very long time, and it's been dismissed often by Democratic operatives as you know, conspiracy theories and this is just right wing attempts to undermine Joe Biden. But actually there was some real substance to that, and that all became apparent on that debate stage. What three weeks ago, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person.
Eligible for what I've been able to do with the with the covid ice could be with dealing with everything we have to do with Look, if we finally beat Medicare. Yeah, well it's taken about a month, hey for him to resign since that disastrous debate, and the calls urging him to pull out only grew over the last week since Trump's assassination attempt. It's interesting watching this unfold from the other side of the world, hey, where it's perhaps not
uncommon for party leaders to face calls to go. How has the US handled that debate?
Well, look, it's so late. As I said, the fact is that Joe Biden was rubber stamped as the candidate, so it was ready then up to him whether to withdraw. In the end, he could have continued, and we were told as late as Saturday that he was absolutely committed to staying in the race and was going to be out campaigning this week. So in the end, perhaps Biden's hand was forced to a degree, But there is no real mechanism once you're the nominee. That is the process.
He got through that primary process and was agreed upon as the Democratic nominee for presidents. So in the New Zealand context, it's a bit different, isn't it, Because it's a parliamentary system here. We don't have a president, so it is a different process. And of course the comparisons that come to mind Jisindhdurn resigning as Prime Minister and the Labor Party leader last year and paving the way
for Chris Hipkins. I guess you could look back to Andrew Little making way for Cisinderadun a couple of months before the election in twenty seventeen is another comparison point. But in the end, I guess the comparisons always fall down in the end. It's a very very different system. Different quantities of money, certainly in the American system is
just one big difference. And there's a huge war chest now behind Carmala Harris, and that will be one of the things that gives her just a huge advantage of any other challenges. She has essentially inherits the Biden Harris campaign war chest. There have been some filings already on that, so she will inherit all the donations that have been made to the Biden Harris campaign and money does mean an awful lot in US politics.
Donald Trump has come out and said that Harris will be easier to beat than Biden. What do you think of that match up but the lawyer versus the felon I guess.
Look, I don't know. I think Karmala Harris will be fine. I think she'll be a lot better than a lot of her critics. It will be expecting. At the same time, even the most stellar candidate on Earth would struggle at this point, taking over three in months before the election and suddenly having to go up against the Trump machine. The Republicans are completely unified between Donald Trump and JD. Vance, the vice presidential candidate. They had a very successful convention
last week. There's a lot of sympathy out there. I guess for Donald Trump after that assassination attempt against him, it's going to be hard. As I say, even the most stellar candidate on Earth would struggle against that. So there will be a huge mountain to climb for Karmala Harris. I think that's who it will be in the end. I think the Democratic machine, the Democratic establishment, is getting
behind Carmala Harris. You're seeing these as from the likes of Joe Biden himself, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi are the top Democrats, so I don't think there are many others with a chance. So she's going to have all the backing from the Democratic establishment. That will certainly help to a degree. And yet it's also going to be easy for others like Trump to claim while it's been a stitch up, because in many ways it has, it hasn't been really a fair primary on the Democratic side. So
we wait and see how Kamala Harris managers. No doubt she'll be going up against Donald Trump and that debate in September. There's a second TV debate scheduled, and it won't be Joe Biden now, but it will be an all likelihood Kamala Harris against Donald Trump. While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last.
Do you think America is actually ready though, to vote for a black South Asian female president when they didn't want to pick Hillary Clinton.
Look, these discussions have been had before. If you recall back to Barack Obama in two thousand and eight, there's an awful lot of inks built and discussions had over whether America was ready for their first black president. I think perhaps actually Americans are a bit more mature than we sometimes give them credit for. And I think Karmala Harris will be fine. I think she will be probably a worthy challenger to Donald Trump. But Donald Trump has
got a huge machine behind him. And unity is just so powerful in politics, whether it is in New Zealand or in the United States, and the Republicans are just so unified now. There is a never Trump wing to the party, but it's very small now compared with say twenty sixteen or during the Trump presidency. The Trump machine has just been very successful. And Trump, despite all of his criminal trials and tribulations, he's more popular than ever.
So He's gone through an assassination attempt and is still standing and is more popular than ever. It's going to take a lot, an awful lot, to defeat that. But I don't think in the end Kamala Harris's ethnicity, gender will really pay much of a role in that. We wait and see. I mean, an awful lot can happen, and the predictions are a very dangerous thing to make.
If we've been recording this interview a month ago, Goodness meet, how different things would look and three and a half months, a lot can happen still in this race.
Could people vote for Harris simply because she isn't Trump or Biden.
I think that will be very much the strategy. Kamala Harris used the line that she was the anti Trump in her campaign adds back in twenty twenty when she was in the presidential race or trying to get the Democratic nomination, and you know, that's probably the best card she has to try and convince people to vote for her both because of who she is. I think there will be plenty of Democrats who do genuinely like her, and plenty of voters who do genuinely like her and
appreciate her. But then there will be plenty of others who in the end vote for her because she's not Trump. And that's I guess a valid strategy as well. No doubt there will be all kinds of scare campaigns and tactics used by the Democrats to reach that goal. You know, in the end, it's a simple numbers game, and it's
all about appealing to the swing voters. And around about ten states in the United States which are the swing states, that's you know, the likes of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and in the end, those voters that hold all the cards here in the American system. So whatever appeals to those swing state voters, I think those will be the strategies that are employed by the Democratic campaign.
Just lastly, Jeffrey, Logistically, what happens next.
Look, there are a lot of arcane rules and procedures from the Democratic National Committee, and I wouldn't pretend to know all the ins and outs of it all. But there was some talk before Biden made his decision that there would be a virtual confirmation of his candidacy before the Democratic National Convenent, which is scheduled to be held in Chicago in a month's time, so it could have been in early August. We wait and see. That could
still happen in Karmala Harris is rubber stamped. But in the end there's a process to go through, and around three nine hundred delegates who have pledged to support Joe Biden, in all likelihood they're going to be backing Kamala Harris now, so that's why largely it's going to be a foregone conclusion in my view. But yes, formally there's a convention, a party conference if you like, in Chicago from the
nineteenth to twenty second of August. In theory, it could go to what's called an open convention where the delegates can choose whatever candidate they find best on the day and practice. I think it's going to be a coronation for Karmala Harris, and it will be signed up well before then. And simply time is not on the Democrat side. They're already incredibly late working out their candidate. I doubt very much they're going to still be working out who's
going to be their candidate in a month's time. I think it will all be sealed and there will be a bit convention that was all about crowning Krmala Harris as the nominee.
Thanks for joining us, Jeffrey. That said, for this episode of The Front Page, you can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzed Herald dot co dot z. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles with sound engineer Patty Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.