Kamala Harris Knows She’s Trapped
“I think it’s okay if we shake hands,” Kamala Harris told me last week. The vice president came out from behind her West Wing desk to greet me, her eyes smiling above her face mask. The last time I was in this particular office, the occupant was Mike Pence. And had it not been for a few state election officials who withstood the pressure to ignore the results, Harris’s desk would still belong to him.
Donald Trump’s most extreme supporters hold out hope that the election results will somehow be overturned, and that Trump will resume office this month. Three days before Harris and I met, police officers testified before Congress about their hellish clash with Trump supporters who swarmed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the election on January 6. One Black officer, Harry Dunn, spoke about repeatedly being called the N-word by rioters. What will the White House do to stop the insurrectionists from trying again? I asked Harris.
“There is that aspect of January 6 which was no doubt about the election,” she told me. “But there is also that component of January 6 that was about a long-evolving and, at moments, increasing distrust in government in our country.” What the Biden administration must do to stave off a repeat, she said, is demonstrate “the relevance of government to the lives of the American people.”
[David Frum: Don’t let anyone normalize January 6]
Harris’s response puts an almost impressively optimistic sheen on what had transpired and who was responsible, especially for a former prosecutor. And as the conversation went on I saw her politician’s knack for filibustering, limiting the number of questions a reporter can ask in the time available. One Harris answer
