The White House has increasingly focused attention on Vice President Kamala Harris’ role in foreign policy since President Joe Biden decided he would not seek re-election, according to a POLITICO review of transcripts and other official documents.
Recently, Harris was reported to have participated in phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and she also provided details about Harris’ involvement in high-profile negotiations and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s unusually sharp comments during a press conference in China.
When asked if Chinese leader Xi Jinping had asked about Harris’ views on China, Sullivan instead loudly proclaimed her contributions to the administration’s Asia strategy.
“Vice President Harris has been a central member of Biden’s foreign policy team, a senior member, and has participated in the design and implementation of the overall strategy in the Indo-Pacific,” Sullivan told reporters after their meeting on Thursday.
Mentioning Harris’ name — or any vice president’s name — is unusual and suggests an effort to bolster her credibility as she faces questions about her ability to handle international affairs and goes against a seasoned opponent in former President Donald Trump.
POLITICO’s review of pool reports, records, transcripts of administration briefings and comments from the country’s top diplomats and military officials found that the administration has mentioned Harris more frequently in public statements about foreign involvement since July, when Biden announced he was withdrawing from the presidential race and endorsed his vice president.
It has expanded to noting when she is 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 sentence, “Vice President Harris also participated in the call.” An Aug. 21 pool report the same day included a White House note that she also sat in on 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 found no mention of Harris in the official summaries and pool reports of Biden’s conversations with the Israeli leader.
The White House recently said that the vice president was present at all of Biden’s conversations with Netanyahu and that the White House released photos of conversations between Biden and Netanyahu in October. let Harris physically appear in the room.
The fact that the vice president is present at these conversations is telling in itself, said Halie Soifer, who served as her national security adviser in the Senate.
“You don’t normally have both the president and the vice president on calls unless it’s critically important,” said Soifer, who now heads the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “The fact that she’s been on over 20 calls with President Biden, with Israeli officials, speaks volumes about how much of a priority Israel is for this White House and the vice president’s commitment to Israel’s security.”
The increased references to Harris in conversations about national security come as the vice president has zeroed in on her role in the Biden administration’s biggest foreign policy wins, particularly in Ukraine and 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, arguing that she “confronted threats to our security, negotiated with foreign leaders, strengthened our alliances, and engaged with our brave troops abroad” as vice president.
Republicans have sought to highlight Harris’ role in the administration’s foreign policy — for a very different reason. They have tried to link her to the administration’s misfortunes in Afghanistan and the Middle East and have questioned her ability to keep the country safe and advance U.S. interests.
It now appears the White House is trying to inflate a relatively limited foreign policy resume, argues John Hannah, a foreign policy aide in both Democratic and Republican administrations who served as national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.
“The flood of announcements to highlight its greater involvement in various recent events is clearly part of that effort to play catch-up and do the best they can to plug 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 was not seen as a major foreign policy player on Capitol Hill. The same could be said of former presidents including Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
The White House and Harris allies say she has played a key role in shaping the Biden administration’s key foreign policy decisions. “Since Day One, President Biden has relied on the Vice President’s judgment and partnership to address the greatest foreign policy challenges and opportunities facing our country,” the administration said in a recent statement.
White House efforts to share information about Harris’s foreign policy contributions have largely focused on her role in the administration’s Asia policy. The vice president has developed ties to 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 that he discussed the proposal with him in two separate meetings.
And in a joint op-ed published in The Washington Post on August 5, Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote that the administration’s efforts to strengthen ties with partners in the Indo-Pacific “represent one of the most important and least told stories of the foreign policy strategy developed by President Biden and Vice President Harris.”
The White House has also touted its role in transatlantic diplomacy with European allies. Earlier in August, senior administration officials highlighted Harris’ role in securing the multi-country prisoner swap that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty reporter Alsu Kurmasheva and Paul Whelan.
At a news conference on Aug. 1, Sullivan told reporters that Harris played a key role in convincing Germany to agree to key provisions of the swap agreement. Part of that effort, a senior administration official told The Wall Street Journal, included Harris proposing that the German government swap Vadim Krasikov, a key piece of the deal, on the sidelines of the 2024 Munich Security Conference. Harris also helped convince Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob to include two Russian spies in the deal, German and U.S. officials said.
For Harris’s supporters, this recognition, albeit delayed, is evidence that the vice president is a partner to Biden on foreign policy.
“She has exceeded every expectation of a vice president,” Soifer said. “It is high time the American people see that she has played a leading role in both shaping and implementing the foreign and domestic policy priorities for this White House.”
