More stories

  • in

    White House defends Kamala Harris after reports suggest she is struggling in role – video

    The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, disputed recent media reports that the US vice president, Kamala Harris, is struggling with her role in Joe Biden’s administration. ‘She’s a key partner,’ Psaki said. ‘She’s a bold leader, and she is somebody who has taken on incredibly important assignments,’ including immigration and voting rights. With questions being raised about the president’s willingness to seek a second term, speculation is mounting over Harris’s chances in a contest for the next Democratic nomination. 
    ‘I don’t have any predictions of whether she will run, when she will run,’ Psaki added. ‘I will leave that to her, but I can tell you that there’s been a lot of reports out there and they don’t reflect his view or our experience with the vice president’

    ‘A bold leader’: White House defends Kamala Harris after reports say she’s struggling More

  • in

    ‘A bold leader’: White House defends Kamala Harris after reports say she’s struggling

    ‘A bold leader’: White House defends Kamala Harris after reports say she’s strugglingJen Psaki fires back after several media outlets portray a vice-president struggling to make her mark John Nance Garner, vice-president to Franklin D Roosevelt from 1933 to 1941, famously said the office “wasn’t worth a bucket of warm piss”. Kamala Harris may now agree.Biden’s approval ratings continue to plunge amid crisis over inflationRead moreThe White House was moved to defend her on Sunday night, after leading US media outlets portrayed a VP struggling to make her mark.“For anyone who needs to hear it,” said the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, Harris “is not only a vital partner to [Joe Biden] but a bold leader who has taken on key, important challenges facing the country – from voting rights to addressing root causes of migration to expanding broadband.”Psaki was firing back on multiple fronts.On Friday, as Harris wrapped up a visit to France, the New York Times said: “Ten months into her vice-presidency, Ms Harris’s track record on delivering on the administration’s global priorities has been mixed.”Célia Belin, of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, told the paper: “I think she’s been really hidden this whole time and out of the sight of most Europeans. I think she’s been quite under the radar.”Then, late on Sunday, CNN published a lengthy report headlined: “Exasperation and dysfunction: Inside Kamala Harris’ frustrating start as vice-president.”The report contained supportive voices, including the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, who said Harris was “off to the fastest and strongest start of any vice-president I have seen”.CNN said Klain emphasised Harris’s work on Covid vaccine equity and foreign policy, and said: “Anyone who has the honor of working closely with the vice-president knows how her talents and determination have made a big difference.”But CNN also said Klain was “known as a Harris defender in the West Wing”. Like much in the piece, it was unattributed. CNN said it spoke to “nearly three dozen former and current Harris aides, administration officials, Democratic operatives, donors and outside advisers”.Its report began with a stark statement: “Worn out by what they see as entrenched dysfunction and lack of focus, key West Wing aides have largely thrown up their hands at [Harris] and her staff – deciding there simply isn’t time to deal with them right now, especially at a moment when Biden faces quickly multiplying legislative and political concerns.”Success on one of the biggest such concerns, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, will see the White House host a signing ceremony on Monday, a chance for the president to bask in public victory at a time when his poll ratings – and Harris’s – are sliding.Reports on Harris’s fortunes generally include discussion of her own political future.As the first Black and Asian woman to be vice-president, she is assured of her place in history. But Biden is nearly 79 and may not run for re-election. Speculation continues to mount over Harris’s chances in a contest for the next Democratic nomination, perhaps in opposition to Pete Buttigieg, who ran much more strongly in 2020 and who as transportation secretary has made a confident start to Washington life.Like Harris, Buttigieg has been attacked by the right – if not so bizarrely as in claims last week that Harris spoke with a French accent while in Paris. Buttigieg recently took paternity leave after he and his husband adopted twins. Criticised by Fox News hosts and others, he was defended by the White House.An unnamed “former Harris aide” told CNN it was “hard to miss the specific energy that the White House brings to defend a white man, knowing that Kamala Harris has spent almost a year taking a lot of the hits that the West Wing didn’t want to take themselves”.There is also a typically outlandish Washington rumour that Biden might remove Harris as VP by appointing her to the supreme court.Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for ‘one religion’ in USRead moreSpeaking to the Times, the former Connecticut senator Chris Dodd, a close Biden friend, said: “I’m hoping the president runs for re-election, but for whatever reason that might not be the case, it’s hard to believe there would be a short list without Kamala’s name on it. She’s the vice-president of the United States.”CNN reported perceived missteps by Harris, struggles to form a relationship with Biden beyond “an exhausted stalemate” and problems with staff. But one of the most widely discussed quotes was attributed to “a top donor to Biden and other Democrats”.“Kamala Harris is a leader but is not being put in positions to lead,” the donor said. “That doesn’t make sense. We need to be thinking long term, and we need to be doing what’s best for the party.“You should be putting her in positions to succeed, as opposed to putting weights on her. If you did give her the ability to step up and help her lead, it would strengthen you and strengthen the party.”TopicsKamala HarrisJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

  • in

    Biden hails US ‘heroes’ killed in Afghan blasts and vows to make terrorists ‘pay’ – live

    Key events

    Show

    5.26pm EDT
    17:26

    Biden addresses nation on Kabul explosions

    5.00pm EDT
    17:00

    Today so far

    3.48pm EDT
    15:48

    Biden to address the nation this evening on deadly attacks in Kabul

    3.15pm EDT
    15:15

    Pentagon confirms 12 US troops killed and 15 injured in Kabul attacks

    3.03pm EDT
    15:03

    ‘We will not be dissuaded from the task at hand,’ defense secretary says after Kabul attacks

    2.46pm EDT
    14:46

    Biden’s meeting with Israeli prime minister moved to tomorrow

    1.56pm EDT
    13:56

    House Republican leader calls on Congress to return to session for Kabul briefing

    Live feed

    Show

    5.52pm EDT
    17:52

    Biden said that although millions of Afghans would like to leave and come to the US, he can’t get them all out.
    “I know of no conflict — as a student of history — no conflict where, when a war is ended, one side was able to guarantee that everyone they wanted to be extracted in that country would get out,” he said.
    Asked how much responsibility he was willing to take for the way the withdrawal has unfolded, Biden said – he’ll bear some.
    “I bear responsibility for fundamentally all that’s happened of late,” he said. “But here’s the deal… you know as well as I do that the former president made a deal with the Taliban.”

    5.47pm EDT
    17:47 More

  • in

    Is Harris a good vice-president? Politics Weekly Extra

    After a rocky few weeks for Kamala Harris, Joan E Greve speaks to Lawrence Haas, former communications director for Al Gore, about the ins and outs of being a successful second in command to the president

    How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

    Since taking the oath of office in January, Kamala Harris has rarely been in the spotlight, save for drawing the ire of some Democrats and all Republicans, who are not particularly happy with her response to two of the issues she has been tasked with dealing with: voting rights and the migrant crisis on the southern border. So what exactly is the role of the vice-president of the United States? In this week’s episode, Lawrence Haas, who worked with Al Gore when he was vice-president to Bill Clinton, shares his insight. Send us your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts Archive: C-Span, CTV News, USA Today More

  • in

    Squandered Resolve Puts Transformation at Risk in America

    Now that the internationalists and their kindred neoconservatives have had their moment in the sun and reestablished America’s “greatness” on the world stage, it is time to get back to the domestic challenge of trying to bring the reality of America into closer proximity to President Joe Biden’s international version of an imperfect nation always seeking to be better and always better than other alternatives. While democracy versus autocracy has a nice ring to it on the outside, dysfunctional democracy at home is still dysfunctional democracy, hardly the poster child for an ideological confrontation.

    So, it was a little disconcerting that during my recent road trip, the Democrats pissed away another month without the courage to act on their stated convictions in the face of the continuing Republican assault on the notion of shared governance for the common good. Talk of progress, incremental change, consensus and bipartisanship continues to be a calling card among those too timid to embrace the national transformation that America’s institutions require to meet today’s challenges at home and abroad.

    Biden’s Myth of Bipartisanship Takes a Hit

    READ MORE

    Even when not fulminating about rampant socialism, wounded white pride, voter fraud and defunding the police, congressional Republicans and those they seek to embrace continue to invent new fantasies to drive their message and excuse their obstruction. To make matters worse, a significant component of the messaging about a post-pandemic return to “normal” includes the continuing empty promise of positive change for a better future for all. Hello Juneteenth, goodbye the difficult challenge of doing something about the nation’s legacy that created Juneteenth in the first place.

    On the Road

    Out and about in part of the American heartland for a month, as the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to fade from view, I had the sense that many in America simply wanted to party, seeking some mystical freedom from thought, work and pain. Daily gun carnage, voter suppression, unemployment, pandemic worries, crumbling infrastructure and the like all seemed to blow away in the face of loading the bait, starting the engine and hitting the water. The only mention of climate change was the micro notion that the almost daily temperature fluctuations were mucking up the fishing.

    In the meantime, while the water beckoned, a federal judge in California was favorably comparing assault rifles to pocketknives, gun violence beat the coronavirus to the top of the death chart in many communities, the minimum wage was finishing second to not working at all, and heat, drought and wildfires began their annual march to increased human misery. Then just to show the country how best to ensure prosperity amid these evils, the great state of Texas added unregulated wandering wacko gunslingers to its list of model citizens, while doing everything possible to keep real model citizens from voting.

    Most disturbing of all, however, is the continued national resistance to public discourse that focuses on collective solutions to address the inadequacies of the present national response to even the most basic national needs. Think how much better off the nation would be if just about everyone got a COVID-19 vaccine. But no, not possible, because way too many people care way too little about the health and welfare of those around them. In its present incarnation as a cultural phenomenon, mindless adherence to non-critical thinking is America’s greatest barrier to collectively defining the common good and then acting to achieve it.

    Woke and Cancel Culture

    This same phenomenon finds its voice in every corner of the right-wing commentariat. In addition to the unexplained evils of some ill-defined socialism, “cancel culture” and whatever “woke” is supposed to mean are all the rage. As for “woke,” it is way past time for “woke” to be put to sleep. Its popular negative implication is aimed at those who rely to a great extent on an awareness of important facts and some capacity for critical thinking, often related to racial and social justice issues. Vilifying the “woke” surely suggests that those not “woke” are so proud of their ignorance that seeking knowledge is to be avoided at all cost.

    Embed from Getty Images

    As for all those terrorized by “cancel culture,” I have some breaking news. It is nothing new. It has been around for millennia. It is the foundation of virtually every organized religion in the world, as but one obvious example. Further, I imagine that each of us could come up with a list of people and concepts that we would like to see a lot less of, so I suggest we start by resolving never to buy a pillow made in America again and by pretending that TikTok is something special about clocks and nothing more.

    On the upside, it is good to see that Biden is still president of the United States, and Vice-President Kamala Harris can still laugh at the wrong time while continuing to work hard at the forefront of immigration reform and voting rights advocacy. But there is so much to do and so few of the institutional components in place to do much of anything.

    As if on cue, a condo building in government-resistant Florida “inexplicably” fell to the ground, killing dozens of people who had nothing to do with the decades of failed governance that permitted natural sand dunes to be turned into unnatural high-rise buildings. As hard as it to watch and as tragic as the final outcome is sure to be, the random human suffering that a pancaked condo building can bring to the fore is a vivid reminder that no one among us is immune if government consistently fails to act to ensure public safety.

    Vaccinations

    That continuing failure remains all around us. It was there before I went on my road trip, and it is there now that I have returned. Progress on COVID-19 vaccination rates has slowed because no one has the political courage to penalize those who fail to get vaccinated for the public good. The Republicans and their police allies still remain silent in the face of a gun culture in America that only grows, along with the stock of armaments in private hands and the unregulated access to those armaments. Bridges and tunnels are no safer today than yesterday. And, by the way, the right to vote continues to be endangered every day in America, just as it is in so many of those countries that we, in America, like to think of as “Third World countries.”

    As if to help me sort all of this out, one evening in a forested state park in Minnesota, a porcupine wandered into my campsite. It was a clear evening, but quite windy. The porcupine looked at me and my red solo cup and the campfire and opted to avoid confrontation. All good, as it moved away without damage to my tent or me. Then it made a major miscalculation and headed rapidly to near the top of thin tree, only to get stuck there dangerously swaying in the wind. It eventually got dark and the wind died down. I imagine that the porcupine breathed a sigh of relief, timidly climbed down from its precarious perch and resolved to try to avoid making the same stupid mistake again.

    Like the porcupine, Americans have created their own perilous times, threatened mostly by their fears that have been hardened by willful ignorance. This leaves way too much of the path forward blocked by miscalculation and misinformation, followed by a breathed sigh of relief each time that the nation manages to escape disaster.

    The next time, however, the nation may not be so lucky unless more of us commit to making our world less reliant on good fortune and more reliant on the determined goodwill of those around us. Sadly, a nation so awash in willful ignorance is highly unlikely to nurture the requisite collective conscience.

    *[This article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

  • in

    Kamala Harris takes heat from both sides in daunting border visit

    The sun beat down on the 30ft border fence that separates El Paso, Texas from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, as temperatures headed towards 100F on the southern border that stands as a symbol for so much in American politics.The heat was also on for Vice-President Kamala Harris, who was making her first trip to the border since being tasked with immigration policy by Joe Biden more than three months ago.It is not an easy job. She was handed one of the toughest issues in American politics and one that has plagued successive American presidents for several decades, no matter what political party was occupying the White House.Criticism for Harris came from both sides of the political aisle for the length of time it took her to make the trip on Friday. More attacks came from Donald Trump, who had accepted an offer from Texas’ rightwing governor Greg Abbott to tour the border ahead of an attempt by Republican-run Texas to fund the completion of a border wall. “If Governor Abbott and I weren’t going there next week, she would have never gone!” Trump said.But Trump’s criticism of Harris was hardly the only voice raised against her as she seeks to come to grips with immigration and border security. She was also criticized by immigration activists and many on the left of the Democratic party for the message she delivered during an early June visit to Guatemala.“Do not come. Do not come,” she said. “I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back.”The blunt message was ill-received by those who pointed out that Harris’ parents were also immigrants.“[Her comments] reinforced the years of attacks on the rights of refugees and asylum seekers by the previous administration,” said Dylan Corbett, the director of a local non-profit organization that focuses on immigration policies and aiding migrants in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. “The message should be: ‘How can we, together, build a future where your children don’t have to migrate?’”After touring a border patrol facility to kick off her visit, Harris made an unannounced stop at the Paso Del Norte port of entry, a busy international bridge that connects the downtown centers of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.While there, she met with five girls detained at the bridge’s processing center, aged between nine and 16 and all from Central America. The meeting was closed to the press, but her office described the meeting as positive, with the girls calling Harris an inspiration and drawing photos for her.Approximately 1,600 children just like those girls are being housed in shelters at the US army’s Fort Bliss in El Paso, according to US media, where there are lengthy stays, poor conditions and infrequent meetings with lawyers.But a visit to the controversial shelter on Fort Bliss was not part of the vice-president’s visit, despite the announcement of an investigation of the housing for migrant children.Across the street from her meeting with the girls, a small group of immigration advocates chanted from the corner, “Si, se puede!” after Harris left. She headed back to the airport, where she met with the leaders of immigrants rights organizations. The focus of their discussion was reported as the root causes and drivers of immigration to the United States.Behind the talk, though, is a brutal reality.The trip from Central America for many immigrants is long and potentially lethal, especially for children. There are deaths from heat stroke as migrants trek through triple-digit desert heat, or fall from the 30ft high border wall already in place in high-traffic areas along the international line.Migrants who survive that fall are just a few of the people who are taken to a local non-profit organization, Annunciation House, which operates as a network of shelters, helping to connect migrants with family in the States and legal representation for asylum cases.The injuries range from fractured ankles to head injuries that have left a woman quadriplegic, according to the director of Annunciation House, Ruben Garcia.“We have such little appreciation for what they’re risking to be safe, to put food on the table,” Garcia said. “These people aren’t coming here because they want to put jacuzzis in their houses.”Nor is getting to the border, or even across it, the end of the story. Should migrants survive the trip from their home countries, through Mexico and across the border into the US, in most cases, they are not currently allowed to stay in the US, even when seeking asylum.Nearly 100,000 migrants have been expelled from El Paso, Texas, into Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, since October, according to data provided by the border patrol. The expulsions are still taking place under a policy known as Title 42, implemented by the Trump administration. Thus far, Title 42 has been kept in place by the Biden administration despite outcry from immigration organizations.“The expulsions under Title 42 are still rampant,” Garcia said.The policy falls under the umbrella of public health and was implemented as a response to Covid-19. “We all know it had nothing to do with the pandemic, it had to do with immigration control,” Garcia said. “I tell people: Donald Trump did get his wall. It’s called Title 42.”There was little sign Harris planned to end that. Nor is there much doubt that the debate over immigration and the border in the US will remain toxic after a Trump era when many Republicans – including the former president – made openly racist statements about immigrants.“In the United States, there is an incredibly significant population that doesn’t want you, they speak extremely derogatorily about you,” said Garcia. “They wouldn’t care if you die on the way, they wouldn’t care if you fell off the wall and broke your back.”Harris sought to draw a little of that poison on her trip. “Let’s not lose sight that we’re talking about human beings,” she said.After meeting with Harris, Linda Rivas, the executive director of Las Americas, a non-profit organization that provides legal representation during immigration processes, said she was grateful to share the stories of her clients with the vice-president but also called for more action. “The Biden-Harris administration must improve the asylum process and end the cruel border policies that ripped families apart,” Rivas said.But as the policy debate continues and Harris mulls her next steps, the heat is unlikely to relent – either in US politics or at the sweltering border itself.In a statement last week, US Customs and Border Protection described crossing the border in the desert in the summer. “The terrain along the border is extreme, the summer heat is severe, and the miles of desert migrants must hike after crossing the border in many areas are unforgiving,” it said.At the moment, not much looks likely to change that. More