Kamala Harris can escape Biden ‘with impunity’: Ex-Obama adviser

Vice President Kamala Harris will escape Republican attacks on President Joe Biden “without penalty” after she was named the Democratic presidential nominee on Thursday, according to CNN political commentator Van Jones.

Harris officially accepted the nomination Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), just over a month after Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her as his successor.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, apparently struggled to refocus his campaign after restructuring the candidate team and often continued to focus his attacks on Biden rather than Harris.

Jones, a former adviser to former President Barack Obama, argued on CNN immediately after the acceptance speech that Harris had not only succeeded in ridding the Democratic slate of Biden's baggage, but also in uniting the party and “fixing some problems on the left.”

“I think Kamala Harris has done something,” Jones said. “She's not going to just walk away from Biden – which I think she can do now with impunity – she has this party behind her. But she's doing something … She's fixing some problems on the left.”

“Before we moved in here, the left was about equity, diversity, trigger warnings, making amends for the past, and a bunch of killjoys and complainers,” he added. “But now it's about freedom. It's not just about diversity, it's about patriotism… We've legalized fun. We've put the 'party' back in the Democratic Party.”

Newsweek reached out to Harris and Trump's campaign teams via email Thursday evening for comment.

David Axelrod, who also served in the Obama administration and was chief strategist in both of Obama's successful presidential campaigns, praised the new candidate on the same show, saying the vice president could match Trump's perceived “strength.”

“That was a very powerful speech,” Axelrod said. “The hallmark of Trump's candidacy, if you lay it bare, was his strength… And that was his advantage over Joe Biden. She showed strength onstage tonight and I think she narrowed his lead there. Onstage, she looked like a president.”

Axelrod went on to say that Harris managed to distance herself from Biden's baggage without speaking negatively about him. He called the speech “her declaration of independence” and said the Trump campaign needs to find better ways to attack Harris than trying to equate her with Biden.

“It's really interesting how little she mentioned Joe Biden in that speech,” he said. “In a way, that was her declaration of independence. And she became her own person in that speech… I think [Republicans] will have a hard time saddling them [with Biden’s record].”