Why it matters: Harris' comments on ABC's "The View" come as most polls show a close race between President Biden and Trump, who was declared the Iowa caucuses winner by most networks some 30 minutes after caucusing began.
Biden trails Trump by eight percentage points in a hypothetical rematch in Georgia, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll of registered voters out Tuesday.
What they're saying: The vice president acknowledged during her appearance on "The View" that the Biden administration has to earn re-election and they have to be on the road campaigning, as she has been.
"There's an old saying that there's only two ways to run for office; either without an opponent or scared. So on all of those points, yes, we should all be scared," Harris said.
"We don't run away from something when we're scared, we fight back against it," Harris said. "So many of us know, when we are scared for the future of our children, do we then stay in bed with the covers over our head? We can't, we cannot."
Of note: Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House communications aide turned critic of the former president, asked Harris what does it say that Democrats are "struggling to compete" with a Republican presidential primary frontrunner who faces four indictments.
"We are all starting to narrow in on what this election will mean and, frankly, in the midst of so many big issues challenging our world that, you know, are not binary, it's not just one side or the other, on this one, there is a split screen you can throw up and see," Harris said.
"And it's going to be the choice between, what is about respecting our democracy, what is about competence, versus chaos."