Will Kamala Harris be shadow president? Her spokeswoman lets slip a few details
For many, the incoming administration of Joe Biden could end up making history by seeing the first woman president of the United States. Kamala Harris is already set to create history on Wednesday, January 20, when she will take oath as the country’s first-ever woman, Black woman and the first woman of South Asian descent to hold that office. But that could only be the beginning of the 56-year-old politician’s phenomenal rise in the power corridors of the White House.
Harris, whose stint as a senator from California concluded on Monday, January 18, has a key role to play in the Senate with the Democrats and Republicans tied at a 50-50 split. She has the tie-breaking vote in the chamber that she presides over and that makes her a key player in addressing big issues ranging from combating the Covid-19 pandemic to bringing criminal justice reform.
Associated Press on Monday cited Harris’s chief spokesperson Symone Sanders saying that while the vice president-elect’s portfolio is yet to be fully defined, she has already made her presence felt in all aspects of the new president’s agenda.
“There are pieces that Biden may specifically ask her to champion, but outside of that she is at the table for everything, involved in everything, and giving input and feedback and being a supportive partner to him on all pieces,” Sanders was quoted as saying.
Harris to feature in four major issue areas
The report added that people who are working in tandem with Harris on the transition disagree with the idea of putting her into one particular issue early on keeping in mind the plethora of challenges the new administration is set to meet. She is expected to be involved in all four of the top priorities that have been set out: turning around the economy, tackling Covid-19, climate change and racial justice, the report added.
“She has a voice in all of those. She has an opinion in all those areas. And it will probably get to a point where she is concentrating on some of the areas more specifically. But right now, I think what we’re faced with in this country is so big, it’s all hands on deck,” Sanders added.
Harris, who has worked as the attorney general from California in the past, has been a voice in all the big decisions that Biden has made since his win over incumbent president Donald Trump last November. She has accompanied him at every key meeting that has focused on issues like picking faces for the Cabinet, the pandemic, security issues, etc. The two top leaders talk over the phone almost every day and Harris travels to Delaware, where Biden is based, often -- sometimes even multiple times a week -- for transition events and talks.
The top duo share a good relationship and Biden has said that he wants Harris to be the “last voice in the room” on key issues, AP added. It has also been reported that Biden seeks Harris’s opinion first on issues during meetings. Biden and Harris have known each other before the 2020 presidential campaign partly because of the latter’s friendship with Biden’s deceased elder son Beau. The two also competed for the presidential nomination before Harris bowed out in December last year. But Biden later picked Harris as his running mate as voices grew amid the race riots for the nomination of a personality of color. Biden had always sought to pick a woman as the vice presidential candidate and it was eventually Harris who made it.
Though they never worked as closely as they are doing now, Harris deserves the credit for trying to deepen the relationship, According to presidential historian Joel Goldstein, the personal relationship between Biden and Harris will be key to the success of their working chemistry.
'Prez, VP relation key'
“The relationship of the vice president to the president is the most important relationship. Establishing mutual understanding and trust is really a key to a successful vice presidency,” Goldstein, who cited the relationship between Biden and former president Barack Obama, was quoted as saying by AP.
The fact that Biden is 78 will raise more questions over Harris’s future than him. A Lesser number of people will envision a second term for the president who will take over as the oldest ever on Wednesday and that would make Harris all the more relevant for the Democratic Party’s plan for the 2024 presidential primary.
The AP report added that while Harris is no match still for Biden when it comes to the art of diplomacy and keeping relationships with global leaders, aides say she will still be involved in the new administration’s diplomatic priorities because Biden himself will be too busy with issues. She might also get a big responsibility to oversee the administration’s response to coronavirus, something Trump asked her predecessor Mike Pence to do, which will add more to her stature.