Joe Biden should probably stop talking

Oomph.

President Joe Biden, as part of his farewell-from-politics tour, stopped by “The View” on Wednesday. And, in the process, he said something dumb.

Here’s Biden on Vice President Kamala Harris:

As Vice President, there wasn't a single thing that I did that she couldn't do and so I was able to delegate her responsibility on everything from foreign policy to domestic policy.

I get what he was going for. The criticism of the Biden-Harris relationship — before he bowed out of the race over the summer — was that they weren’t terribly close and that the president (and his inner circle) didn’t trust the vice president with the really big jobs and decisions.

Fair or unfair, I think Biden is reacting to that criticism here. He’s bending over backwards to send a message that Harris was his partner in all things in the White House.

Again, I get it! It’s just not at all helpful to Harris for Biden to talk about how they were joined at the hip for the past 4 years.

Why?

Well, for starters, Biden is not terribly popular. In the latest monthly Gallup poll, he was at 39% approval. Which isn’t great!

In fact, it’s the worst job approval — at this point in their presidency — of the last four occupants of the White House. At this time, George W. Bush had a 52% approval rating. Barack Obama had a 50% approval. Hell, even Donald Trump had a 44% job approval toward the end of his first term.

As a general rule, you don’t really want an unpopular politician to bear-hug you publicly. You can get that unpopularity stank on you — and Harris absolutely does NOT want that this close to the election.

Then there’s the Biden administration policies — particularly on the economy and immigration, the two issues voters say matter the most to their vote this fall.

Take a look at these poll numbers from a Pew poll released July 11 — just 10 days before Biden dropped out of the presidential race:

Trump +13 on economic policy. Trump +17 on immigration policy. And these are far from isolated numbers. In poll after poll before Biden dropped from the race, voters said they trusted Trump/Republicans more than Biden/Democrats to handle the economy and immigration.

Now, to be honest, Harris’ policies on the economy and immigration, since she emerged as the Democratic nominee, aren’t a) terribly well defined or b) all that different from what Biden has said and done.

Harris, of course, doesn’t talk all that much about those similarities. Because she knows exactly what I outlined above — that neither Biden nor Biden’s policies on the economy and immigration are popular.

And, Trump has shown himself to be, well, terrible at trying to tie Biden’s poll numbers around Harris’ ankles. During the Sept. 10 debate, Trump missed nearly every opportunity to do just that. His best line of the debate, which came at the very end of the night, was this one:

So, she just started by saying she's going to do this, she's going to do that, she's going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for 3 1/2 years. They've had 3 1/2 years to fix the border. They've had 3 1/2 years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn't she done it?

Yup. That’s the argument that wins him the election. But, for whatever reason, he hasn’t made it much.

What Biden did today on “The View” is hand Trump’s campaign a gift. Literally just cut what Biden said into an ad. And then ask viewers whether they want four more years like the last four years.

Even Donald Trump Jr. gets it. (I can’t believe I just wrote that.)

Biden is trying to help. But the Harris campaign absolutely does not need this sort of help.