From left: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty
Vice PresidentKamala Harriswas pressed in a Thursday interview about claims she feels underutilized in the Biden administration — a whisper campaign she laughed off.
“I am very, very excited about the work that we have accomplished,” she toldGood Morning America. “But I am also absolutely, absolutely clear-eyed that there is a lot more to do and we’re going to get it done.”
The vice president’sGMAinterview comes in the wake of alengthy, anonymously sourced CNN reportabout alleged dysfunction between her team and the West Wing.
One of the few named sources in the CNN story, Harris friend and California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, said it was “natural that those of us who know her know how much more helpful she can be than she is currently being asked to be. That’s where the frustration is coming from.”
But onGMAthe vice president played down speculation of strife.
“This was a good week,” Harris, 57, told George Stephanopoulos, pointing back to the recent signing of a major infrastructure investment bill that was a signature priority for the White House.
“We’re getting things done and we’re doing it together,” she said of her and PresidentJoe Biden.
The infrastructure legislation’s bipartisan passage — after months of sometimes fraught negotiation — “makes a statement about all of the hard work that has gone into it, month after month after month,” Harris said.
“I’ve traveled around the country, as has the president,” she said. “We have convened members of Congress, we have convened people around our nation, asking, ‘What do you want?’ And this is a response to what they want.”
One thing Harris declined to discuss in herGMAinterview, however, was the future. Asked if she and Biden had talked about him running for re-election when he would be 82 years old — ashe has already said he plans to do— she pivoted to their regular briefings on national security and other meetings focusing on the issues of today.
Vice President Kamala Harris.EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty
Asked specifically if she and the president had talked about 2024, Harris said, “Absolutely not.”
More broadly, the administration has been contending withsharply declining poll numbersfor both Bidenand Harrisamid a series of challenges, fromthe end of the war in Afghanistantoprotracted congressional infightingover how to pass Biden-backed bills.
Aides have long insisted that focusing on the president’s domestic policy items, like infrastructure and social spending, will invariably address voters' concerns and rally support again. The infrastructure bill passing was seenas a potential breakthrough, along with continued job growth, even as Republicans rally to the problems around rising prices.
To that end, the White House has recentlysharpened its focuson inflation and so-called “supply chain” issues in the economy.
“It’s real and it’s rough,” Harris acknowledged onGMA. “The cost of groceries has gone up, the cost of gas has gone up. And, as this is all happening in the context of two years of a pandemic. Over 700,000 lives lost, much less the loss of livelihoods and a sense of normalcy. So it’s a lot. And it’s one of the highest priorities actually, for the president and for me.”
Harris' spokeswoman Symone Sanders had separately dismissed the CNN reporting as “gossip” when compared to Harris' work onher first European tripas vice president.
“It is unfortunate that after a productive trip to France in which we reaffirmed our relationship with America’s oldest ally and demonstrated U.S. leadership on the world stage, and following passage of a historic, bipartisan infrastructure bill that will create jobs and strengthen our communities, some in the media are focused on gossip — not on the results that the President and the Vice President have delivered,” Sanders said in a statement.
From left: Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden.ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images
Elsewhere, Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Harris faced scrutiny unlike any other vice president.
“One of the things I really admire about the vice president: She is the first African-American woman, woman of color, Indian-American woman to serve in this job. Woman. I mean, so many firsts, right? It’s a lot to have on your shoulders,” PsakitoldPoliticoon Wednesday. “She is somebody who, at a much higher level than the rest of us, but who wants to be seen as the talented, experienced expert, substantive policy person, partner to the president, that she is. But I do think there have been some attacks that are beyond because of her identity.”
source: people.com
