‘Dick Cheney Was Once Darth Vader’: CNN’s Gloria Borger Says Harris Should Celebrate Former VP’s Endorsement

CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger suggested Vice President Kamala Harris should embrace nabbing the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney, noting Democrats once viewed him as “Darth Vader.”

The 83-year-old endorsed Harris over former President Donald Trump Friday afternoon in a statement in which he called the country’s 45th president a “threat” to the country.

Cheney, a Republican who served as vice president from 2001 to 2009, concluded, “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”

On CNN’s The Situation Room Friday evening, a network panel discussed Harris’s courting of more and more Republicans who have become disillusioned with Trump.

CNN host John King noted the race between Harris and Trump is close. He suggested the vice president could use the endorsement of Cheney and his former GOP congresswoman daughter Liz Cheney to signal to other Republicans they are welcome to join Democrats for an election. King said:

There’s a big debate next week. This is an opportunity for the vice president to talk to Republican voters, too, to your Nikki Haley primary voters, to Reagan and Bush voters. To people who don’t like Donald Trump to say, “You might not like me, you might not know me very well. I’m a Democrat. You may not have voted for me before and you might not want to vote for a Democrat, but please listen to these respected figures in your former party who think Donald Trump is a threat.”

Borger noted that while Cheney might not be as influential as he once was, she suggested Harris playing up his endorsement could move the needle in her direction.

“While Dick Cheney isn’t going to cause any kind of a groundswell, Liz Cheney isn’t going to cause any kind of a groundswell, she’s joining other Republicans,” Borger said. “It is these people on the margins, and I think that Kamala Harris ought to talk about it a little bit because Dick Cheney was Darth Vader to the Democratic Party. That was his name.”

Watch above via CNN.