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Joe Biden, still isolated with Covid, spoke via speaker phone to his campaign staff early Monday evening to tell them the truth behind his big decision.

“I know it’s hard because you’ve poured your heart and soul into me,” Biden told the campaigners who won him the nomination and then the presidency in 2020. But it wasn’t to be in 2024. “I think we made the right decision,” the president said.

The decision to withdraw came Sunday when Biden released a letter on social media with the shocking and historical news. Biden will speak further on the matter in a prime time address from the Oval Office Wednesday night.

But Monday was more of a family event, when he was just Joe on the speaker phone, a disembodied Biden speaking to a room in Wilmington, Delaware, where campaign manager Julia Chavez-Rodriguez stood on camera at a podium. Biden’s voice was all that was needed to reassure the staff about to be assumed by Kamala Harris.“The name has changed at the top of the ticket, but the mission hasn’t changed at all,” the president said.

That was essentially the passing of the torch, the flame. Or the passing of “duende”? That’s what Boston Globe columnist George Frazier, one of those who inspired the column form in me, might have called it.

Duende is the charismatic allure of a world class performer that makes you constantly want to watch every move. For a politician to possess it is pure gold.

Biden had it throughout his long political and legislative career. And now, as he steps aside and allows Harris, his veep, to step forward, it was clear. When Harris was introduced to cheers and came to the podium in that room, she had it too. Duende. And much more of it than anyone ever thought.

Harris addressed the people there, but was still aware of Biden’s presence. “We love Joe and Jill, we really do,” said Harris.

“It’s mutual,” said Biden cutting in via speaker phone, almost like the Asian Filipino meaning of “duende,” which I’ve known as a spirit in the house, sometimes a helpful, loving one.

“I knew you were still there,” Harris said, looking up with a laugh. “You’re not going anywhere, Joe.”

“I’m watching you, kid. I love you,” Biden said.

“I love you too,” Harris said, as the crowd cheered and clapped.

That made it official. The torch had been passed.

Compare this kind of political rhetoric between a president and his No. 2 with the one we saw during the Trump administration on Jan. 6, the day that birthed the phrase, “Hang Mike Pence.”

Pence, incidentally, was one of the few Republicans to respond with any decency."President Joe Biden made the right decision for our country and I thank him for putting the interests of our Nation ahead of his own," Pence wrote on X.

For the most part, Republicans’ heads are still spinning by the Harris “duende express.” Some continue to “other” her by mispronouncing her name. It’sKAH-ma-la. Not kah-MAH-la.

Or they’ve just relied on GOP racist rhetoric. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn) called her a “100 percent DEI hire,” a phrase intended to disparage “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” But Harris, who has distinguished herself as a local district attorney, a state attorney general, a U.S. Senator and a U.S. vice president, has the resume any white male could envy.

At one Trump rally, Ohio State Sen. George Lang said, “I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country.”

He later walked back his hate, but it’s clear the rhetoric of Republicans hasn’t changed since the assassination attempt on Trump.

A less racist, more subtle approach was used by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton on Tuesday, when during a TV interview he kept referring to Harris as a “San Francisco liberal.”

Correction. She’s really more of an Oakland liberal, but OK, she spent time as San Francisco district attorney. I’m in exile now, but I’ve been writing columns as “San Francisco liberal” for decades. One of my topics was District Attorney Kamala Harris. Was she hard on crime? She was political. I always chided her for not going after white attacks on Asian Americans back in the day.

I never spoke with Harris about it. But once at a fundraiser, our eyes met and we chose the diplomatic option. We walked the other way.

Now she’s on the verge of history and the duende is palpable.

We all can’t stop watching her.

It’s the duende express.

Since the announcement of Biden’s withdrawal, all her political rivals have fallen in line. The race now is to be her veep.She has earned the delegate support to assure a first ballot nomination.

She’s inherited more nearly $300 million in Biden funds and raised a record haul--more than $100 million in mere days. There’s an excitement we haven’t seen at the “grassroots” level in years.

I remember the 2019 announcement in Oakland for her presidential run as being filled with excitement. Then came Iowa.

She’s a different person. As her Indian mother would say, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

Harris has put the old politics into a new context as she continues to make history as the first African American, Asian American woman vice president to be nominated for the presidency.

It's the basis for a diverse coalition, the kind that reflects a changing America going forward.

To win, Kamala the prosecutor laid out her strategy in Wilmington and again in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

She’s going after Trump, the convicted felon. After prosecuting criminals, Harris says, she knows “his type.”

But she’s says her “people powered” campaign that will put “people first” intends to improve the lives of ordinary working class Americans.

Kamala has attracted mostly young women and people of color, and it’s put the blood back into a heretofore lackluster campaign.

It's energized now.

Harris has become the leader of the exciting promise of a New America.

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NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” my AAPI micro-talk show. Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com.