Former President Joe Biden appeared to confuse the timeline of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign during an appearance on The View Thursday, misstating how long she had to win the race after he dropped out.
Co-host Sunny Hostin asked Biden to respond to critics who say stepping down and endorsing Harris more than 100 days before the election hurt her campaign. Biden replied, “I say, number one, that there were still six full months,” even though there were less than four months between his July 21 withdrawal and Election Day on November 5.
It was unclear if Biden misunderstood the question or was referencing the time remaining in his term, which ended on January 20. Either way, the comment added fuel to questions about the chaotic handoff and the compressed timeline Harris faced in launching a national campaign.
Biden defended Harris, saying she was involved in “every decision we made,” and insisted the administration had a remarkably productive term. “We got more major legislation passed to fundamentally change the direction of the country than any president has in a long, long time,” he said.
He touted the passage of the Recovery Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, claiming the administration defied expectations. “I don’t think anybody thought we’d be successful as we were,” he said.
Biden also repeated a line about rejecting trickle-down economics. “My dad used to say, ‘Not a whole lot trickled down to his kitchen table,’” he said, emphasizing his administration’s focus on building “the economy from the middle out and the bottom up.”
He then took a swipe at former President Trump, calling his first 100 days in office “the worst any president has ever had.”
Later in the interview, Biden again referenced the post-dropout period, saying he’d done a “pretty good job” in those final six months. “The strongest economy in the world we left. That’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact,” he said. “We created more jobs in one term than any president has in American history.”