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Louise Thomas
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The View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin has criticized Kamala Harris’s choice of running mate for the 2024 presidential election.
On Tuesday (August 6), Vice President Harris, 59, announced that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, 60, would join her on the Democratic ticket.
Walz beat out a crowded field of rivals to be the Democratic pick for VP, including Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
“An extraordinary missed opportunity,” Griffin, 35, who has previously praised Governor Shapiro, wrote on X/Twitter.
In a since-deleted tweet, Griffin also suggested that Walz’s left-wing politics would be “radioactive with swing voters.”
She went on to list Walz’s pros and cons. Under “pros” she wrote: “Strong midwestern messenger; executive experience as a governor; likely an effective surrogate in critical swing states of MI & WI; flipped a swing seat in Congress.”
Under “cons” she wrote: “Seen as very progressive on guns & Gaza; not viewed as a moderating force on the ticket.”
Harris and Walz made their debut as running mates on Tuesday, kicking off a campaign against Republican nominees Donald Trump and JD Vance in front of an electrified crowd in Philadelphia.
Harris told the estimated 12,000 people in attendance that she had “set out to find a partner who can build this brighter future” during her weeks-old campaign for the presidency.
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She added that her search for a running-mate led her to look for a “leader who can unite this nation and move us forward,” someone who was “a fighter for the middle class” and “a patriot who believes as I do the extraordinary promise of America, a promise of freedom, opportunity and justice not just for some but for all.”
Walz is a former high school teacher who enlisted in the US Army National Guard at 17 years old and served for 24 years, then spent more than two decades teaching and coaching football before entering politics.
Meanwhile, Griffin describes herself as a “Republican in exile.” After several years of working in various roles within the Trump administration, she assumed the role of the White House spokesperson and assistant to the president in April 2020. Eight months later, she resigned from the role before joining The View permanently in 2022.
Days after Biden abandoned his re-election campaign and endorsed Harris, Griffin praised the VP’s campaign, saying: “I am blown away by her digital operation.
“[She] had 24 hours to stand this up. She is all over TikTok, she has turned things that seem cringy into making her seem cool. This feels Obama-level energy and Trump world is not ready for it.”
Griffin has previously argued that Trump is “not as sharp as he was in 2016.” “[He’s] not even as sharp as he was in 2020,” she said in March. “For some reason, that doesn’t necessarily come across to voters the same way.”
Back in 2020, when Griffin announced she was departing Trump’s administration, she called the role an “honor of a lifetime.”
She said that she was “deeply proud of the incredible things we were able to accomplish to make our country stronger, safer, and more secure.”
