Biden gave Harris many chances to prove herself: Here’s how she performed

President Joe Biden invested Vice President Kamala Harris with an unprecedented degree of authority to pursue key policy initiatives for the White House, but she often was unable to leverage her spot in the driver’s seat to reach the finish line. The White House and media alike gave Harris notably higher prominence than is typical for the vice president, consistently referring to the “Biden-Harris administration” and seemingly elevating her to the status of a near equal partner. Biden himself, moreover, made her his point person on immigration, gun violence, and even tasked her with key foreign policy efforts.

But some of those assignments set off alarm bells among her staff and supporters, with many questioning whether the president had pawned off some of the most politically sensitive issues to his vice president and had “set her up to fail.” The public evidently noticed many of her efforts appearing to fall flat as she enjoyed some of the worst approval ratings for a vice president ever prior to becoming the Democratic nominee, which saw a concerted media effort to boost her image. RealClearPolitics' most recent poll average showed a 48% "disapproval" rating. 

Despite running as a “change” candidate, Harris admitted this week that there was “not a thing that comes to mind” when pressed on how she would have acted differently than Biden over the course of his administration. Republicans seized on the admission and the incident highlighted her role in the administration’s key initiatives that led to Biden’s falling public approval. Here’s a look at some of Harris’s key efforts and their outcomes.

“Border czar”

Biden appointed Harris to serve as his “border czar” in 2021 amid an unprecedented influx in illegal border crossings. After assuming the Democratic nomination, Harris rushed to disavow the title, with a compliant legacy media attempting to memory-hole the appointment they had previously touted.

Harris’s staff has heavily emphasized that she was tasked with addressing the root causes of mass migration rather than border security, though that has not stopped Republicans from seizing upon her connection to the border crisis.

Harris never visited the border until several months after her appointment. She returned this year after becoming the party nominee. During an appearance on “60 Minutes” this week, she struggled to account for the administration’s handling of the border situation, but pointed to an executive order from President Joe Biden this year cracking down on asylum seekers.

When pressed on why Biden had not issued a comparable order before allowing millions of illegals to enter the country, she was unable to answer the question and instead insisted that she needed support from Congress to address the problem.

Office of Gun Violence Prevention

Biden also appointed Harris to captain the White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention in late 2023. While Biden himself had something of a record on gun control, securing the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022, it predated the establishment of the office and Harris never managed to successfully spearhead further gun legislation in her new capacity.

To be sure, Harris has attempted to use the office to further existing efforts and to use executive authority of her former running mate to that end. In March of this year, she visited Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where she announced the creation of a resource center to help with the implementation of red flag laws. She further urged states to pass red flag laws and use already-allocated funds to aid in their implementation.

But Biden has continued to take the lead on gun initiatives over Harris, signing an executive order aimed at combating the use of “glock switches”, which easily convert semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons. Careful to walk the line in pro-Second Amendment swing states, Harris bragged on "60 Minutes" about owning a Glock. The Denver Gazette reported that her Glock is considered an "unsafe firearm" in her home state of California.

Reassuring allies: "Hopeless"

Harris visited Europe earlier this year, serving as the American representative to a security conference in Munich, where she faced the task of reassuring U.S. allies of their commitment to continental security as former President Donald Trump criticized NATO.

She was far from successful in convincing European leaders of her ability to take over as Biden’s successor and, evidently, convinced some that the return of a Trump presidency was likely.

In the wake of that trip, European Central Bank board member Isabel Schnabel was caught on a hot mic saying Harris was “invisible” and that “she would never win an election, I mean that’s hopeless,” Politico reported. 

The trip evidently rattled officials in the UK government while other European figures were critical of her penchant for scripted events, the outlet noted. Biden himself ultimately traveled to Europe for the G7 summit that year to again reassure American allies of Washington’s commitment to the alliance and to Ukraine’s security.

Voting rights

In 2021, Biden announced that he would appoint Harris to lead legislative efforts to pass H.R. 1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, two keynote pieces of voting access and rights legislation.

 “Today I’m asking Vice President Harris to help these efforts and lead them among her many other responsibilities,” Biden said at the time. “With her leadership and your support we’re going to overcome again, I promise you.”

The House passed H.R. 1 in March of 2021, though the bill died in the Senate. In August, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act cleared the lower chamber but it failed in November of that year to overcome the 60-vote Senate filibuster and appears dead in the water.

Harris, a veteran of the upper chamber, was ultimately unable to secure sufficient support there to ensure that either bill reached President Joe Biden’s desk.

Afghanistan

Harris also touted her status as the “last person in the room” when making key decisions with President Joe Biden, notably on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. In an exchange with CNN, she confirmed that she was “comfortable” with the plans, but later pulled an about-face during her debate with former President Donald Trump, blaming him for negotiating a weak deal ahead of their own withdrawal.

The calamitous August 2021 evacuation of U.S. personnel from Afghanistan came amid a Taliban offensive that seized most of the country and witnessed American forces airlifting personnel and allied contractors out of Hamid Karzai International Airport. The effort drew wide criticism and marked a significant downturn in President Joe Biden’s approval ratings.