Silent no more, Harris seeks her own voice without breaking with Biden

WASHINGTON – After meeting Israel’s prime minister this week, Vice-President Kamala Harris said she “will not be silent”. She was referring to her concerns about Palestinian suffering in the war in the Gaza Strip, but in a way, it was a larger declaration of independence.

For nearly four years, she has been the quiet understudy, relegated to the role of the supportive deputy while President Joe Biden made pronouncements. Now she has suddenly been

thrust to the fore as the new presumptive Democratic presidential nominee,

and neither silence nor agreeable head nods are sufficient anymore.

The challenge for her over the next 100 days will be to find her own voice without overtly breaking with Mr Biden, a delicate political high-wire act without a reliable net. Every statement she makes and every sentence she utters will be scrutinised to determine whether it is consistent with the president she serves. Yet even as she wants to demonstrate loyalty to Mr Biden, she also hopes to show the public who she is.

She is fortunate in that she and Mr Biden do not diverge all that much, according to people who have worked with them. While friction between presidents and their vice-presidents is common, there have been few notable instances where Mr Biden and Ms Harris have been reported to be at odds. So for her, it may not be as difficult to suppress contrary instincts in the truncated election campaign she faces as it has been for other vice-presidents eager to differentiate themselves.

But this is a balancing act being figured out on the fly. Because Mr Biden was running himself until less than a week ago, neither he nor Ms Harris has had much time to figure out how to coordinate their messages. It was notable that Mr Biden left it to Ms Harris on July 25 to be the public voice of the administration

during the White House visit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel,

taking the silent role himself.

Mr Biden cares deeply about keeping former president Donald Trump out of the White House and therefore has reason to be invested in Ms Harris’ success. He also knows that because, until he was forced to quit the race, he insisted on running again despite concerns about his age, many will blame him for not ceding the stage earlier if Trump wins.

“Given the unique circumstances of the present situation, I believe Harris will have more room to manoeuvre in this tricky terrain,” said Mr Richard Moe, who was chief of staff to former vice-president Walter Mondale. “It all depends on the nature of the issue and whether it is one that Biden feels strongly about, but it’s apparent nonetheless that Biden is prepared to give her a good deal of latitude.”

Mr Joel K. Goldstein, a long-time specialist on the vice-presidency at St Louis University School of Law, said an incumbent vice-president running for president faces three challenges. The opposition will tag the vice-president with any baggage the administration has. The vice-president must step out of the president’s shadow to establish her own identity. And the vice-president needs to pivot from subordinate to leader – “and do so while someone else is still president”.

“It seems to me that Vice-President Harris has done remarkably well this first week in presenting herself as an effective new leader of the Democratic Party,” Mr Goldstein said. “She has skilfully managed to remain loyal to President Biden and the accomplishments of the administration while presenting herself as an independent, vigorous new leader from a different generation with a different style.”

Abortion rights and the war in Gaza are the two most obvious areas where Mr Biden and Ms Harris have been perceived differently. They both favour a nationwide right to abortion, but Mr Biden remains uncomfortable speaking about it, while Ms Harris has leaned into the issue with passion and energy. On Gaza, she has stuck by his position but has more emphatically addressed humanitarian concerns.

During Mr Netanyahu’s visit, Ms Harris condemned pro-Hamas demonstrators as “despicable” and made it clear that she supports Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism. But she talked forcefully about “the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety” from Israel’s assault on Hamas in Gaza. “We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent,” she said.

Ms Harris’ office had no comment on July 26, but an aide speaking on condition of anonymity because of the internal sensitivities stressed that her remarks were consistent with the President’s policy and what she had said previously.

Mr Khaled Elgindy, the director of the programme on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute, however, said Ms Harris’ statement “was a notable departure from Biden” in tone, if not in substance.

“Whereas Biden typically centres Israeli needs, interests and trauma while treating Palestinian suffering mostly as an afterthought or talking point, Harris kind of flipped that formula by centring Palestinian suffering and humanity throughout her remarks,” he said.

Ms Harris delivered her statement after meeting Mr Netanyahu and without the Prime Minister by her side. Israeli officials were surprised by her comments, seeing them as much sharper than what had been said behind closed doors.

They complained privately to reporters that she risked encouraging Hamas to resist a cease-fire deal by making it appear that the US was not in lockstep with Israel, a position Mr Netanyahu echoed on July 26 while

meeting Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Trump weighed in as well. “I think her remarks were disrespectful,” he said. “They weren’t very nice pertaining to Israel. I actually don’t know how a person who’s Jewish can vote for her, but that’s up to them. But she was certainly disrespectful to Israel.”

However, Ms Harris, whose husband is Jewish, feels no need to prove that she is more supportive of Jewish people than Trump, and is far more concerned about Mr Biden’s reaction. She wants to maintain respect for him, advisers say, without feeling boxed in.

“I believe Harris should do everything she can to adhere to the Biden policy as long as she is still the vice-president,” Mr Moe said. “That need not be an absolute rule, because the public understandably will expect her to be her own person at some point, so it’s tricky. But essentially, she can distinguish herself as a matter of emphasis and style, as she did on Gaza and the Palestinians.” NYTIMES