Strategy Harris likely to avoid president after gaffe

The delicate dance by Kamala Harris's presidential campaign to simultaneously show deference to Joe Biden, separate herself from his presidency and thwart his ambition to campaign for her has reached a critical juncture as the 2024 election approaches its climax.

- Edward Helmore

The steps of the dance, which has been going on since Harris assumed the Democratic party nomination in August and involve efforts to shield the 81-year-old president's ego and feelings, became even more leaden this week after Biden appeared to call supporters of Donald Trump "garbage".

Though he clarified that he did not mean Trump supporters but rather their attitude towards Latinos, the comment nevertheless set off echoes of Hillary Clinton's infamous "basket of deplorables" put-down of a section of Trump's supporters in 2016.

In doing so, it threatened to at least partly undo the Republican campaign's self-inflicted damage caused by a comedian guesting at a Trump rally on Sunday who described Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage" and made several racist remarks about Latinos, black people and Jews.

Biden's latest incident of apparently misspeaking - last week he said of Trump: "We got to lock him up... politically lock him up" - may be the end of his involvement in the Harris campaign.