The White House wants you to know: Harris was in the room
By: Eric Bazail-Eimil (POLITICO)
Joe Biden is not doing Kamala Harris any favors by correcting the record at this late date. First of all, Harris cannot dodge questions about foreign policy since she has been in the room. Secondly, Kamala Harris cannot escape responsibility for long term US commitments to support and continue wars that started on the watch of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The third strike is that the corrected record establishes an expectation the Harris will stay the course and continue the foreign policy initiatives and commitments made by Joe Biden to mollify Congressional Democrats.
The coup de grace of the corrected record is that Kamala Harris has lost the narrative of being an underdog. Harris is an incumbent that has been a decision maker intimately involved in creating policy. Joe Biden's legacy is also Kamala Harris' legacy.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The White House has increasingly touted Vice President Kamala Harris’ role in foreign policy since President Joe Biden’s decision that he wouldn’t run for reelection, according to a POLITICO review of transcripts and other official documents.
Recent mentions of Harris have included noting that she joined calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, details of Harris’ involvement in high-profile negotiations and unusually pointed comments by national security adviser Jake Sullivan at a news conference in China.
Asked whether Chinese leader Xi Jinping had inquired about Harris’ views on China, Sullivan instead trumpeted her contributions to the administration’s Asia strategy.
“Vice President Harris has been a central member of the Biden foreign policy team, a leading member, and has been part of the design and execution of the overall strategy in the Indo-Pacific,” Sullivan told reporters following their meeting Thursday.
Name-checking Harris — or any vice president, for that matter — is unusual and suggests an attempt to buttress her credentials as she faces questions about her ability to manage international affairs and confronts an experienced opponent in former President Donald Trump.
POLITICO’s review of pool reports, readouts, transcripts of administration briefings and comments by the nation’s top diplomats and military officials found that the administration increased its mentions of Harris in public statements about foreign engagements since July, when Biden announced he would drop out of the presidential election and endorsed his vice president.
It has extended to noting when she’s in the room for important meetings. An official summary of an Aug. 1 phone call between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ended with the line “Vice President Harris also joined the call.” An Aug. 21 pool report the same day included a White House note that she also joined a call between Biden and Netanyahu during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Previously such mentions were rare. In fact, between Oct. 7, the day Hamas launched its attack on Israel, and July 25, POLITICO did not find a single mention of Harris in the official summaries and pool reports about Biden’s calls with the Israeli leader.
The White House has more recently said that the vice president has been present for all of Biden’s conversations with Netanyahu and pictures released by the White House of October calls between Biden and Netanyahu do show Harris physically in the room .
The fact that the vice president is present for these calls is itself significant, said Halie Soifer, who served as her national security adviser in the Senate.
“You don’t typically have both the President and the Vice President on calls unless it is of critical importance,” said Soifer, who now leads the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “The fact that she has participated in more than 20 calls along with President Biden, with Israeli government officials says a lot about how much Israel is a priority for this White House and the Vice President’s commitment to Israel’s security.”
The increased references to Harris in national security conversations come as the vice president has leaned into her role in the Biden administration’s biggest foreign policy wins, especially on Ukraine and in the Indo-Pacific. In her Aug. 22 speech at the Democratic National Convention , Harris pointed to her work rallying support for Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s February 2022 invasion and argued that she “confronted threats to our security, negotiated with foreign leaders, strengthened our alliances and engaged with our brave troops overseas” as vice president.
Republicans have sought to highlight Harris’ role in administration foreign policy — for a very different reason. They have sought to link her to the administration’s setbacks in Afghanistan and the Middle East and questioned her ability to keep the country safe and advance U.S. interests.
It now appears that the White House is trying to puff up a relatively limited foreign policy resume, argues John Hannah, a foreign policy aide in both Democratic and Republican administrations who served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security adviser.
“The flurry of announcements to highlight her deepened involvement in several recent events is clearly of a piece with that effort to play catch up and do the best they can to plug what is obviously a potential weakness,” said Hannah, who is now a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.
Before becoming vice president, Harris had only some foreign policy experience as a member of the Senate Intelligence and Homeland Security committees and wasn’t seen as a major foreign policy player on Capitol Hill. The same could be said of past presidents, including Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush. and Bill Clinton.
The White House and Harris allies argue she has played a consequential role in shaping the Biden administration’s major foreign policy decisions. “Since day one, President Biden has relied on the vice president’s judgment and partnership to tackle the biggest foreign policy challenges and opportunities our country faces,” the administration said in a recent statement.
White House efforts to share information about Harris’ foreign policy contributions have largely focused on her role in the administration’s Asia policy. The vice president has developed ties with the leaders of Japan and the Philippines. Administration officials recently highlighted her role in securing an agreement with the government of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to resettle Afghan refugees in the southeast Asian country while they await visa processing to enter the United States.
A senior administration official told The Washington Post that Harris suggested the idea to Marcos during a visit to Manila in November 2022 and raised the proposal in two separate meetings with him.
And in a joint op-ed published in The Washington Post on Aug. 5, Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wrote that the administration’s efforts to bolster ties with partners in the Indo-Pacific is “one of the most important and least-told stories of the foreign policy strategy advanced by President Biden and Vice President Harris.”
The White House has also promoted her role in transatlantic diplomacy with European allies. Earlier in August, senior administration officials also emphasized Harris’ role in securing the multi-country prisoner swap that saw the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty reporter Alsu Kurmasheva and Paul Whelan.
At an Aug. 1 press briefing, Sullivan told reporters that Harris played a key role in persuading Germany to agree to major provisions of the swap agreement . Part of that effort, a senior official told The Wall Street Journal , included Harris proposing that the German government trade Vadim Krasikov, a key component of the deal, on the sidelines of the 2024 Munich Security Conference. Harris also Harris helped convince Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob to include two Russian spies in the deal, per German and American officials.
For Harris supporters, this recognition, even if delayed, shows that the vice president has been a partner to Biden on foreign policy.
“By every measure, she has exceeded what one would expect from a vice president,” said Soifer. “It’s high time that the American people see that she’s played a leading role in both the shaping and implementation of foreign and domestic policy priorities for this White House.”
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Correcting the record to tie Kamala Harris to the Biden legacy seems to be more about preserving Joe's legacy than about helping Harris. Is Biden trying to force Kamala Harris into defending Biden's record? That would mean Kamala Harris is expected to follow the same course as Lyndon Johnson.
The corrected record may be about retribution and revenge, too. After all, Joe Biden was politically assassinated to remove him from running for reelection. Democrats actually did to Joe Biden what they have threatened (and failed) to do to Donald Trump.
Seems like a strategic campaign move turned into a massive mistake.
Harris can't be both an outsider and insider.
Now she may share the failures with Biden.
Joint op-ed or a campaign ad for Harris?
100% wrong. The Vice President makes zero decisions. She may advise the president if the president wants her advice, but then as president, he will do whatever the fuck he feels like doing. Many people are “in the room,” and they can offer the full spectrum of counsel, but the president - and only the president - makes decisions.
Furthermore, these conversations are generally considered confidential, so it’s unlikely you’re going to hear much about anything Harris had to say to Biden in these situations.
So the whole thing is just puffery to boost Harris, who basically did nothing other than sit in the room for all we know.
I’d say that’s SOP for any VP/former VP running for president. VPs are more involved with the administration than they were say, 100 years or more ago, but they still don’t have any more powers or duties than they did when the country was founded.
I don’t doubt that a VP learns a lot about the issues and decision-making - which is why it’s a good résumé builder for presidential candidates - but they don’t make the decisions. They never have.
That's rather naïve considering that Sec. State Anthony Blinken, also sitting at the table, makes independent decisions affecting and establishing administration policy. In fact, all Department Secretaries and many agency heads have the authority to make independent decisions that affect and establish administration policy. Anthony Fauci, as an example, certainly set policy for the Trump administration.
Are you suggesting the Administrator of EPA has more authority and power than the Vice President? The argument that Kamala Harris, as Vice President, makes zero decisions lend support to claims that Harris was a DEI hire.
That’s easy to claim when you’re trying to push a conspiracy theory, but there is no support for it. Accusing me of naïveté is a mistake.
Yes. Because he has been empowered to do so by the president and various acts of Congress.
Yes. Again, that is because they have been granted specific powers via laws passed by Congress and signed by the president.
Yes. In matters impacting the environment, like clean air and water that impact human health, absolutely. Power and authority has been delegated for those purposes. If the EPA created a regulation, the Vice President would not have the authority to overrule it or fire the Administrator. The president does.
The Vice President does not have any of the duties or authorities of these cabinet members unless it is specifically delegated by law to him/her. The VP may or may not be in the room for important discussions. Advice from the VP may be sought or not, and decisions are made by the president.
You mentioned the EPA. Unless the VP has specific expertise in the environment, she may have no clue about regulations created by the EPA, or big environmental initiatives launched by the president. At best, her political savvy may be of value in the decision-making process.
All of this will vary from one administration to another, and from one topic to another. But the only decision the Vice President legally has is how she will vote when breaking ties in the Senate. As we all were made aware on January 6, 2020, the VP also presides over the things like the counting of Electoral votes in the presidential election. But he only presides. He makes no decisions.
On occasion, the president will delegate some of his own authority to the vice president. That is again, very individual, but it’s usually in the nature of negotiating something or observing and reporting back to the president - that kind of thing.
but, but, but 'she was IN THE ROOM'
yeah, she was, and now Democrats are pushing like she 'did' something when she didn't do anything.
Being in the room doesn’t mean you made decisions. At minimum, it means you’ve learned how the sausage is made. She may have also offered analysis or advice.
Any of that is something. It’s just not decision-making. It’s also a path on learning how to be president, which I consider valuable in a candidate.
I never claimed otherwise. I find it hard to watch Democrats touting the fact "she was in the room" as some accomplishment or something completely ridiculous, especially after Harris supporters are always so quick to point out "it wasn't her decision".