White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that he wouldn’t assess Vice President Joe Biden’s body language to determine if he would run for President.
Speculation mounted Monday morning when MSNBC reported that Biden would make a decision in the next 48 hours.
Earnest was asked at his daily media briefing Monday if Biden looked “like a guy who’s about to announce he’s running for President?”
“That is a creative way to ask that question,” Earnest responded.
“I’m not going to stand here and assess the Vice President’s body language,” Earnest continued. “There is no denying that Vice President Biden is somebody who brings a lot of energy to his current job. And based on the fact that he has run for President twice before, I think should be a clear indication that he believes that he’s got something to offer to that debate and to offer to the country.”
Earnest added that he said Biden’s “strong performance” as Vice President has led others to believe he would be an “influential” and “effective” candidate, but that it’s a personal decision that Biden should make on his own.
Watch the comment:
h/t: Mediaite
You don’t see democrats clamoring for VP Biden to run for POTUS. I think that VP Biden is a good VP, but his time has passed.
I love the guy. But he’s 72. And he polled in the single digits last time. And he has lots of ‘the same’ as Hillary. But he doesn’t have the endorsements or the $ or the infrastructure that Hillary has already assembled. And late comers tend to fizzle out soon after arriving. And an 8 year commitment makes him an old guy in his second term.
Well then he can’t be on the Republican ticket.
Obviously the White House would rather not have to chose between their former SoS and current VP, but it’s hard for me to see their comments about Joe Biden’s Presidential Ambition as anything other than the bare minimum you could be required to say to be polite. You can’t say your VP did a bad job, because that just means you made a bad choice as President (and arguably one of the most important choices you can make is picking your VP). I don’t read that as negative feedback about Joe as a person, but definitely supports the idea that Clinton is seen as the best political bet for the Democrats within the White House.
Earnest’s performances suggest the potential for synergies between the daily White House press corp briefings and daily reports from “correspondents” on The Daily Show.
Josh Earnest and Jordan Klepper could switch jobs periodically. Each would stay fresher and maybe even grow within his regular role, there could be a just redistribution of compensation packages, it could result in each of their careers being extended, both shows would benefit, and there’s really no basis for thinking the public would be served less well, or even much notice any difference.