Kamala Harris finally has a job to do! We’ve been wondering what she’s been up to since it’s certainly not fixing the southern border. Aside from a few meetings here and there, her schedule has been empty for weeks.
Now, Harris is headed to Europe to make a few visits as tensions continue to rise between Russia and Ukraine.
Foreign relations are typically a job for the president. However, Joe Biden isn’t known to be the best speaker. Or the best hand-shaker. Or, really, the best anything. He can’t even stay awake long enough to know what’s being said during important meetings with world leaders.
When we’re trying to avoid a third world war, Biden can’t be trusted to get the job done. So, just as things heat up, he’ll hunker down in his basement and let Kamala Harris take care of things.
Is Harris up for the job? Probably not, but she’s all we’ve got.
She’ll be meeting with not only Ukraine’s president but also various European allies. It’s all to talk about whether Russia’s Vladimir Putin is going to pull back or if he’s actually going to declare war on Ukraine.
Harris will be traveling to Germany first, where she will be leading a delegation at the Munich Security Conference. At the delegation will also be Secretary of State Antony Blinken. This will be one of the last attempts for the White House to show unity with the other leaders of Western Europe and Ukraine.
Basically, we need to show a united front – and the Biden administration doesn’t have a great track record of that since we abandoned Afghanistan, another one of our supposed allies.
If we can show a united front, the goal is for Putin to realize that waging war on Ukraine would be a very bad thing.
The problem is that we’re looking to create a united front and we couldn’t even bother to send our commander in chief. Biden’s too scared to travel over there in case a war does happen, so he’ll just weaken our position as a country…again.
Harris will be meeting with other presidents and world leaders – not their seconds in command. It doesn’t look good for the U.S.
The Munich Security Conference will involve a number of countries from around the world. It’s not expected that Russian officials will be in attendance. Even participation by Ukrainian officials is uncertain – though Harris will still be meeting with President Zelensky of Ukraine separately.
The only way that Harris won’t meet with Zelensky is if the tensions are too high. Officials have acknowledged that the situation remains fluid since Zelensky won’t leave Ukraine if Russia is still in a position to attack.
Meanwhile, our president is on vacation. He went to Camp David just as tensions were on the rise. And if he decides to head back to deal with anything presidential, it will only be a matter of time before he needs to “relax” by taking a trip back to Delaware where he can stay at one of two homes.
Thomas Wright, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution explained that unity is critical at this point. “If Putin is dissuaded from invading, it will almost certainly be because of this unified approach.”
Harris has already stated that she plans to deliver a speech that underscores the importance of a cohesive response from U.S. allies. Something just tells us that the speech would have sounded more unifying if it came from the president instead of the vice president.