Vice President Kamala Harris will on Friday participate in what the New York Times is calling a “short notice” call with wealthy Democratic donors, all convened by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

“We continue to find ourselves in a rapidly evolving environment… With the stakes as high as they are this cycle, we have to remain focused on the critical work that needs to be done to protect our democracy,” Hoffman wrote in an email addressed to “friends and allies” in donor community. The Times article says it isn’t clear what Harris’s role in the call will be, as in whether she “plans to encourage the restive donor base to calm down or to deliver some other message.”

Anything other than the former looks like she’s leading a palace coup. Harris hasn’t done anything stupid in the last three weeks, so no reason to expect she’d somehow fuck it up now. Kamala appears to be reading up on how Gerald Ford was conducting himself 50 years ago exactly: Staying as fucking far away as possible from anything and anyone even remotely pushing Nixon toward resigning from the presidency. Still, leaks get twisted and turned to serve agendas so leaving the Times ample space to write that ominous “some other message” is not great… unless that “other message” is going to be the first word of a shift on the Dem ticket, sanctioned by Joe Biden.

UPDATE 7/19/2024 2:31 PM EDT: NBC’s Ali Vitali confirms the Times’s reporting, but adds “Biden’s advisors asked her to do the call.” So probably just filling in while Joe recuperates from The Rona.