Why Kamala Harris is prepared to step in as president

With the exception of Dick Cheney (who made wars), vice presidents don’t typically get to make foreign policy. But I can’t think of any vice president who has become steeped in international affairs more quickly and more thoroughly than Kamala Harris.

That was a blank spot in Harris’s résumé when Joe Biden chose her as his running mate nearly four years ago. Her career as San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general and U.S. senator did not include any meaningful experience in foreign policy. That has completely changed — and it’s making her a stronger asset to the Biden-Harris 2024 ticket.

Last week, Harris represented the nation for the third consecutive year at the annual Munich Security Conference. Attendees have told me that the first time she went, in February 2022, she was tentative. It was like learning to swim by being tossed into the deep end: Russian tanks and troops were massing at the borders of Ukraine. Harris met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the first time at that gathering, which concluded just four days before Russia’s invasion. Harris told me later that year that she had wondered whether she’d ever see Zelensky again.

This year in Munich, Harris held a joint news conference with Zelensky and crowed that “Kyiv stands free and strong.” In her address at the conference, she offered a strong, erudite defense of U.S. global engagement and emphasized the vital importance of the NATO alliance. Harris was no longer a newcomer; she was comfortable among the assembled world leaders, many of whom she now knows personally.

While at the conference, the vice president met privately with President Isaac Herzog of Israel. During their conversations, she called for the release of all hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza and for a “prolonged pause” in the war that has taken nearly 30,000 lives and caused a grave humanitarian crisis. She also met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, pressing him to do more to ensure the security of U.S. forces who remain in the country and are being attacked by Iran-sponsored militants.

Early in her tenure, Harris’s words to these leaders about tough subjects would not have had the authority they have now. After 16 overseas trips as vice president, she has learned the issues. And she has met, and sized up, the players.

It is not uncommon for world leaders who come to Washington for meetings with Biden to also meet separately with Harris. A couple of examples: King Abdullah II of Jordan met with the vice president on Feb. 13 after seeing Biden the previous day. And Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador dropped by Harris’s residence at the Naval Observatory for breakfast in 2022 before meeting with the president at the White House.

Given Biden’s decades of experience as a senator and as vice president under Barack Obama, there is no doubt about who has the final say in this administration when it comes to foreign policy. But there should also be no doubt that Harris, whenever called upon, is capable of stepping in.

The Biden-Harris campaign should be pushing back hard against attacks from the likes of GOP candidate Nikki Haley, who has spent months trying to paint Harris as somehow unqualified. “You know what should send a chill up every person’s spine?” Haley asked last week. “The thought of a President Kamala Harris.”

All of this is designed to leverage the fact that 83 percent of Republicans — the voters Haley is desperately trying to attract — view the vice president unfavorably, according to a YouGov poll last week.

The flip side, however, is that the rank-and-file voters of Harris’s party like her very much: In that same YouGov poll, 86 percent of Democrats viewed Harris favorably. That suggests the campaign’s strategy of having her fly around the country, trying to energize the Democratic faithful about issues such as abortion and voting rights, is good politics.

And Biden has practiced good government as well, by creating space for Harris to gain the exposure and experience she would need if — perish the thought — he were no longer able to serve and she suddenly became commander in chief.

As Haley says, we live in a world “on fire” — war in Ukraine, war in Gaza, China menacing Taiwan, Russia menacing Europe, Republicans hiding under the bed. There are many things that should chill our spines, but the thought of a President Kamala Harris isn’t one of them.