Washington
CNN
—
Vice President Kamala Harris has met greater than 150 world leaders since turning into vice chairman. However a July sit-down with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu felt totally different.
Coming days after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race and as Democrats had been coalescing round her candidacy, maybe no different sit-down would garner as a lot consideration or carry as a lot weight.
“We’ve got quite a bit to speak about,” she stated, earlier than dismissing reporters — the very same phrases Biden used to start his personal assembly. However Harris’ had been delivered in a way that stated one thing completely totally different.
The second, which amounted to Harris’s debut on the world stage because the Democratic standard-bearer, captured the sophisticated dynamics which have coloured her international coverage ambitions, and supplied a preview of the kind of statesmanship she would pursue as president.
By advantage of her place as vice chairman to a commander in chief whose “past love” was international coverage, based on his aides, Harris had little room over the previous three-and-a-half years to stake out her personal distinct doctrine or worldview.
As an alternative, she has hewn carefully to the views of her boss, whilst she’s develop into extra concerned over time within the US response to numerous roiling world conflicts. In conferences and on journeys overseas, she’s acted as a clean-up artist and bearer of dangerous information on behalf of Biden, conventional roles for a vice chairman.
Republicans, led by Donald Trump, have argued Harris sat alongside Biden because the world went up in flames. They level to her assertion, made throughout an interview on CNN, that she was the final particular person within the room as Biden was deciding to go forward along with his deliberate US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which led to chaos and lethal violence.
Harris stated within the interview that she was comfy with Biden’s resolution and praised the president’s “braveness” in making it. On the marketing campaign path, she’s argued that Trump’s “chaotic actions” as president led to “catastrophic penalties” in Afghanistan.
Harris herself has proven little daylight between herself and her boss. Requested immediately throughout an August CNN interview – twice – whether or not she could be doing something in a different way than the present president on the Center East, Harris supplied few specifics past pointing to a long-negotiated hostage and ceasefire deal.
“No,” she informed Dana Bash. “I – now we have to get a deal carried out. Dana, now we have to get a deal carried out.”
But for all of the shut ties between Biden and Harris on the world stage, there are some indicators she wouldn’t act completely as a carbon copy of her former boss’s strategy. As vice chairman, she has been a booster for vital allies that Biden didn’t have time to lavish his full consideration upon. And he or she has been a louder voice for causes that haven’t all the time obtained the complete highlight of the presidency — particularly the struggling of Palestinians in Gaza.
Harris’ uncommon step of delivering remarks following her July assembly with Netanyahu was a transfer she would unlikely have made had been Biden nonetheless working for a second time period. White Home officers made a concerted resolution to permit her brief assertion to face as the one substantive remark following Netanyahu’s go to.
Whereas reiterating her steadfast help for Israel – as she had carried out each time the difficulty arose over the earlier 10 months – she additionally struck an pressing tone on the plight of the Palestinians.
“We can not permit ourselves to develop into numb to the struggling,” Harris stated exterior her ceremonial workplace, subsequent door to the White Home, “and I can’t be silent.”
Senior White Home officers – whilst they insisted that there was no daylight between the president and vice chairman in the case of Center East coverage – have extra readily acknowledged during the last yr that their respective tones when discussing the Israel-Hamas warfare had been, in actual fact, distinct.
“They’ve totally different types, is the truth, in the case of expressing themselves,” one senior Biden adviser stated earlier this yr on how the president and Harris tended to publicly talk about the continued battle.
Consequently, the vice chairman’s public statements criticizing Israel’s dealing with of the Gaza battle and lamenting the plight of Palestinian civilians had, greater than as soon as because the onset of the warfare, raised questions on whether or not Harris was on a special web page from Biden.
Harris herself has been delicate to that scrutiny. As one senior Democrat near the vice chairman put it, Harris “understands that there’s a notion that she is left of (Biden) on Israel.”
Privately, this Democrat stated, the vice chairman has insisted that she believes it’s doable to be each “strongly pro-Israel” and able to articulating the assumption that “this combat shouldn’t be with the Palestinian individuals.”
Final December, the vice chairman additionally traveled to the Center East to attend a local weather summit – and juggled a number of excessive stakes conferences and calls with Arab leaders amid heightening tensions, marking her foray into wartime diplomacy and forcefully sending a message of restraint.
Because the Israel-Hamas warfare has unfolded, Harris has displayed a real need to take the heartbeat of the Arab American group within the US, sources accustomed to her engagements stated.
Harris has made telephone calls to Arab American leaders within the US to grasp their perspective and to hearken to their criticism of the Biden administration’s coverage strategy to the battle, defined two sources. Some have been shocked to obtain a name from the vice chairman, they stated.
A Harris aide stated that as vice chairman, she has “strongly condemned Hamas’ brutal terrorist assault on October 7, denounced atrocious acts of sexual violence, advocated relentlessly to carry the hostages dwelling, and labored to make sure Israel stays a safe, democratic and Jewish state.”
Harris didn’t enter the job with huge expertise on the world stage. Each her advisers and international officers she’s interacted with say Harris managed to take what was primarily a supporting function and switch it right into a crash course in international diplomacy. One former senior adviser described the vice chairman taking dwelling huge briefing books and infrequently peppering staffers with questions as she was briefed on a number of international coverage points.
She started, some stated, fairly scripted and unsure however emerged inside her first yr in workplace a extra assured voice. In conferences, she will seem alternatively heat – trying to find commonalities over meals or household – and steely, as she holds a agency line on US coverage.
Harris advisers argue nothing might have higher ready her to step onto the worldwide stage, ought to she to win the election in November, than her time as vice chairman.
They level to her travels overseas, conferences with world leaders and the time that she has spent with Biden navigating plenty of main international coverage crises – together with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza – as giving her a sure gravitas that she didn’t have when she was first searching for the presidency in 2020.
Harris has visited 21 international locations in her present function, based on an aide, and met with greater than 150 world leaders — together with China’s President Xi Jinping, with whom Biden has lengthy sought to domesticate extra secure ties.
“There’s no higher preparation to be president of america than what the vice chairman has carried out over the previous three-and-a-half years,” a senior administration official stated.
Nonetheless, Harris has not all the time been the primary telephone name for international leaders or officers seeking to get a line into the White Home. Others on Biden’s crew, together with his secretary of state and nationwide safety adviser, have been seen as extra central to American resolution making, based on diplomats.
As she heads towards November’s election on a swell of Democratic momentum, some international governments want to know her higher.
Within the run-up to this month’s United Nations Common Meeting, the yearly marathon of diplomacy that brings a parade of international leaders to New York, dozens of nations have been reaching out in hopes of organising a gathering with Harris, a number of US officers stated. Some international locations have even supplied to accommodate or change their schedules to lock in a gathering together with her.
Harris presently doesn’t plan to journey as much as New York for the meeting, a supply accustomed to the plans stated. As she has carried out in earlier years, it’s doable she’s going to take time to fulfill with international leaders who’re visiting the US for the UN gathering in Washington, DC.
US diplomats stated it might be to her profit to take a seat down with world leaders, however additionally they perceive her crew is deciding whether or not she will afford to be off the marketing campaign path.
“Each second she shouldn’t be in Michigan or Pennsylvania is a loss. It’s a cost-benefit evaluation,” stated one US official.
Amongst those that have labored most carefully with Harris on international coverage issues over the previous three-and-a-half years and seen because the vice chairman’s international coverage mind belief are Phil Gordon, her nationwide safety adviser; Rebecca Lissner, her principal deputy nationwide safety adviser; and Dean Lieberman, her deputy nationwide safety adviser for strategic communications.
One stalwart of the Biden nationwide safety mind belief – with whom Harris held periodic lunch conferences to debate international affairs – urged this week he wouldn’t keep on for a possible Harris presidency.
“All I’m proper now’s the steadiness of this administration, in January,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated on the conclusion of a information convention in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. “And I can let you know, from having spent a while during the last week on little bit of a break with my youngsters, I’ll relish having much more time with them.”
When requested the place the vice chairman’s international coverage views might in the end differ from Biden’s, her advisers insist that as long as she is in her present job, they might decline to deal with what they see as “hypothetical coverage questions.”
“She stays the vice chairman of america and stands by the Biden-Harris administration insurance policies,” Lieberman stated. That’s actually the case, he added, in the case of the vice chairman’s views on the Israel-Hamas warfare.
A month after Russia invaded Ukraine, Harris was dispatched to NATO’s japanese flank on a reassurance mission – one which additionally got here with some delicate diplomatic smoothing-over. Moments earlier than she took off for Poland, a rift had emerged between Warsaw and Washington over the switch of fighter jets to Ukraine.
Aboard Air Drive Two, Harris took a telephone name from Biden, ensuring she was in control on the matter. In conferences with leaders, each in Poland and a later cease in Romania, Harris sought each to say American help for Ukraine and its NATO allies whereas avoiding any public spat.
For a international coverage novice with aspirations for greater workplace, the warfare in Ukraine was a rigorous introduction to wartime diplomacy.
Days earlier than the 2022 invasion by Russia, Harris met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the Munich Safety Convention and mentioned with him the most recent American intelligence about what could be coming. She has met with Zelensky six occasions in whole because the warfare started.
“The Zelensky assembly was a pivotal second in her journey of main on international coverage,” stated Nancy McEldowney, who served as nationwide safety advisor to Harris from 2021 to early 2022.
“In that assembly, we carried out an unprecedented alternate of detailed intelligence,” McEldowney recalled of the hourslong assembly. “We laid out all the data, after which talked about what it meant and talked about how the Ukrainians might reply.”
Talking on the Munich Safety Convention the next yr in 2023, Harris stated Russia had dedicated crimes towards humanity.
Nonetheless, whereas Harris attended the Munich discussion board as the highest Biden administration official twice and met with Zelensky every time, the Ukrainians had been annoyed each occasions after they realized that she was being despatched as an alternative of Biden, sources stated. Of their view, there was no proof that Harris was – at both time – deeply concerned in US policymaking when it got here to the warfare.
Throughout Harris’s assembly with the Ukrainians at Munich in 2024, one personal message she delivered was that the US urged the Ukrainians to cease hitting Russian vitality inside Russia, sources stated. This was not the primary time the Ukrainians had heard the message from US officers, however Harris delivered the message empathically and so they weren’t thrilled, sources stated.
As we speak, Ukrainian officers don’t know precisely what to anticipate from a Harris presidency if she wins the election.
“They don’t see her as stable as Biden in the case of supporting Ukraine. Their finest wager is that she’s going to uphold that established order of US help,” stated one supply near the Ukrainians.
“Vice President Harris has been a powerful proponent of putting up with US help for Ukraine and has repeatedly expressed an unwavering dedication to help the individuals of Ukraine as they defend themselves towards Russia’s brutal aggression. She has vowed to proceed to help Ukraine and impose prices on Russia,” an aide to the vice chairman stated.
Because the US sought to restore the connection with France after the rollout of a submarine deal that didn’t embody the previous European ally, the Biden administration despatched plenty of high-ranking officers to Paris: Blinken, White Home nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan after which local weather envoy John Kerry. The Biden administration then determined to ship Harris as the ultimate customer, which a European official described as a really profitable crescendo.
Harris spent 4 days within the nation and developed a “good private relationship” with French President Emmanuel Macron, the official stated.
“On the time she was perceived to not have a lot expertise, however she gave off a extremely good impression,” the official stated. “She displayed what’s uncommon in high-level politicians: She took her time.”
Certainly, in contrast to Biden – who hardly ever departed from his schedule of conferences to soak up any tradition throughout his journeys overseas – Harris made time for a quintessentially Parisian pursuit: Buying.
Stopping on the E. Dehillerin, the well-known cookware store on Rue Coquilliere close to the Louvre, Harris declared she wanted some pots for her Thanksgiving meal.
Pointing to the racks of copper ware, she inquired – in French – whether or not they had a smaller mannequin: “Comme ça, mais plus petit?”