Kamala Harris manages the heat to manage the intricate vice president’s portfolio

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has conducted an extensive television interview this week while visiting Guatemala.

Asked why he has not been on the U.S.-Mexico border, where the flood of migrants is causing tremendous tension to local communities, Harris first dismissed the question and said, “We’ve been on the border.” Pressing, he laughed and said, “And I haven’t been to Europe.”

His comments sparked criticism and underscored the political dangers posed by the number two White House officials juggling a heavy and broad political portfolio.

Harris was in Central America as the leader of the Biden administration’s response to the border issue, including a thorny question on how to deal with migrants. fleeing from the north Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras from troubled countries.

They have also given him an almost unsolvable task of shepherding the conflict situation voting rights and police reform through strictly fragmented Congress legislation. He has taken the path of selling President Joe Biden’s sweep infrastructure planak. He has also taken an interest in the black death of his mother and other issues of racial equity, including addressing the question of vaccination among African Americans.

The tasks of the vice president are as follows: they usually, if successful, become achievements of the president and the administration. If you don’t succeed, they will become yours

Harris’s trip abroad as a first foreign president revealed that his opponents and allies say his shortcomings as a politician and his weaknesses should make him a candidate for the presidency again. Harris, a former California senator, left a pure primary bid for the White House in late 2019.

Comments to NBC News earlier this week sparked outrage, especially from Republicans who are running an administration on migrants. Meanwhile, he took the flats from the Democrats by asking the migrants not to come to the border first.

Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh has stated that the vice president has not effectively conveyed her message on the trip.

“If you make your debut on the international stage as a vice president, you want to offer your best performance and it can certainly do better,” Marsh said.

Harris made history when he swore in January that he would become the first Asian woman to become the first woman, the first black person, and vice president. He has too much power as a tie in the Senate, which is split between Democrats and Republicans. But the other duties of the vice president are not so clearly defined.

People around the administration say Harris is a skilled adviser to the president and has shown an almost constant presence in the White House, attends regular meetings, offers advice to Biden, and appears by his side at major conferences.

Biden himself served as vice president under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017. When Harris announced last summer that he was its president, he said he hoped he would give advice like Obama.

“When I accepted to serve as President Obama… He asked me what I wanted most… I told him I wanted to be the last person in the room before making important decisions,” Biden said.

He added: “That’s what I asked Kamala. I asked Kamala to be the last voice in the room.”

Harris is unlikely to be the first vice president with difficult tasks. Recently, Mike Pence, Donald Trump’s vice president, head White House coronavirus team.

“The tasks of the vice president are like this, and if they succeed, they usually become the achievement of the president and the administration. If they don’t succeed, they will become yours,” said Kenneth Baer, ​​founder of Crosscut Strategies Consulting. Clinton government vice president of writing Al Gore was a writer and Gore was a nasty bid for the 2000 presidency.

Proponents of Harris believe the portfolio only underscores the faith that Biden has put in place.

“Any of these issues would be a full-time job for most people,” Marsh said.

Many Democrats believe Harris suffers from inappropriate criticism, especially from Republicans, for her identity as a woman of color. Others acknowledge that he took the wrong steps in Latin America and said he refused to lead the way – Harris later reminded people of his shortcomings as a presidential candidate in 2019 about the border crisis he later froze in exchange for an Univision TV anchor.

“I think what you’ve seen in recent weeks. . . are some of the issues you saw during the campaign, “Marsh said.” At different times during the campaign, it wasn’t good at all. On other days, it was spectacular. ”

The political future of Biden, who is 78 years old, will come under Harris’s tenure. His allies say he is focused on supporting the president in advancing his legislative agenda ahead of the mid-2022 election, when he will take control of both houses of Congress. stay competitive. Next week, he will meet with Texas state lawmakers for the right to vote, as Democrats recently blocked a state bill that would restrict access to ballots.

“It makes sense. . . that he is focused on his future in terms of work, and I don’t think that’s true, ”said Dylan Loew, a former spokesman for Biden’s then-vice president and who also wrote a memoir of the stone.

“The last thing he wants for the future presidential campaign is always to have the story focused on the future, not the president, and that he wasn’t the same vice president as Joe Biden. Joe Biden was like that for Barack Obama.”