Within 36 hours of being handed the reins of the Democratic Party, Vice President Kamala Harris has already begun to send out vetting materials to possible running mates. But for now, she appears to have skipped over one name that has gotten a lot of early buzz.
Vetting materials have been distributed to North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, according to a post on X (formerly Twitter) from The Wall Street Journal ’s White House reporter Ken Thomas.
Notably missing from Harris’s list of potential vice presidential candidates was Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that he had not received any materials from the Harris campaign.
Not only is Beshear one of the most popular governors in America, who has gained wide appeal despite being a Democratic leader in a red state, but ever since Harris was endorsed by President Joe Biden on Sunday, Beshear has repeatedly voiced his support for the new presumptive nominee and begun mounting attacks against Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance.
Beshear appeared on CNN Monday night, launching an informal audition to go head-to-head with Vance. Beshear specifically went after Vance for his “phony” opioid charity, and touted his own record as an attorney general who was tough on opioid companies.
“We need folks that have substance; we need folks that are up for the job. And J.D. Vance certainly isn’t, and never will be,” Beshear said .
The Kentucky governor claimed that any of the names that have been floated for Harris’s vice president would “eat J.D.’s lunch every day on a debate stage leading up to November.”
“Listen, J.D. Vance is a phony. He’s fake. I mean, he first said that Donald Trump is like Hitler, and now he’s acting like he’s Lincoln. I mean, the problem with J.D. Vance is he has no conviction, but I guess his running mate has 34 ,” Beshear said.
Beshear had started bright and early on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Monday, when he lauded Harris’s character, as well as her record, and began attacking Vance’s harsh anti-abortion stance, one of the Trump pick’s weakest spots with voters. He also called him a phony.
Vance had responded to some of Beshear’s attacks by calling it “weird” for Beshear to call him fake, when Beshear had “inherited” the governorship from his father, Steve Beshear, who served as Kentucky governor from 2007 to 2015.
Beshear was quick to hit back Monday night. “Well, what was weird was him joking about racism today, and talking about diet Mountain Dew . But in all seriousness, he ain’t from here. He is not from Kentucky,” Beshear said .
He criticized Vance for profiting off his writing about people in eastern Kentucky, while being raised in Ohio. “He called them ‘lazy,’ acting like he understands our culture, and he’s one of us; he’s not,” Beshear said. “This is a guy who went out to Silicon Valley, that’s trying to be an everyman. He ain’t one of us.”
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