Even on a pandemic-time stage, amid social distancing not seen before, she was as obvious as a light in the dark. But, she was obvious as much for her sex and her dark skin as she was for her Indian face. Yet, as she spoke on Thursday, it was clear Kamala Harris was growing into power, that she belonged there and that she would wield power and influence easily in the “male-est” and the whitest of places, certainly in a place no one like her has ever been before.
It could be that for many her presence there strained credibility. In Jake Tapper’s first-joint Biden-Harris interview on CNN, however, she was not just a demographic adornment but a full-partner in an administration that could leave the little girl that was bussed to integrated schools and whose mother was a little girl in Tamil Nadu as a key player in the biggest game in life—the presidency of the United States, the most powerful job in the world.
“We are full partners in this process,” she responded to Jake Tapper in a question about the making of her vice-presidential role.
“Look, there’s not a single decision I’ve made yet about personnel or about how to proceed that I haven’t discussed it with Kamala first,” Biden said in response to another question. “That’s true,” Harris added with a smile, holding just short of her trademark guffaw of laughter. Clearly, she was comfortable.
The first woman, first Black woman, and first person of Indian descent in history to be elected Vice President of the United States, Harris said she and Biden have an understanding that their relationship will follow the mold of a historic understanding the now-president-elect had with President Barack Obama—that she will be the last person to speak with President Biden before any big decision is made.
“I will tell you that the President-elect has, since the first day he asked me to join him on the ticket, been very clear with me that he wants me to be the first and the last in the room,” said Harris. “And so, on every issue that impacts the American people, I will be a full partner to the President-elect and the President, and whatever our priorities are, I will be there to support him and support the American people.”
That sounds a lot like a crafted politically corrected statement, yet for Harris, as it was for Biden, those words and the actions and moments tied to them could build a mosaic that amounts to real power.
Saying that he and Harris were “simpatico on our philosophy of government and simpatico on how we want to approach these issues that we’re facing,” Biden said the two of them had discussed foreign and domestic policy and praised Harris’s work and experience as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee (a situation that allowed her to continue to get daily intelligence briefings even in the face of Trump’s initial denial of that courtesy to the president-elect).
“We had the discussion about this beforehand,” he said, explaining that he and Harris deal with policy and philosophy disagreements in private, just as he and Obama did when they disagreed.
“Whatever the most urgent needs [are] that I’m not able to attend to, I have the confidence of turning to her,” he said, stressing that the Biden-Harris relationship in his administration will be a “working partnership” where responsibilities are shared.
At one point, Harris completed Biden’s thought as she called an upcoming event date, and he seemed to rely on her as he spoke of his administration's plans. Whether by dynamic or by design, their interactions showed they are on the same wavelength, close and familiar enough with each other’s mind that on crucial moments they even think alike.
Building on Harris’s debate statement on vaccines during her debate with Vice-president Mike Pence when she said, “If Donald Trump tells us to take it, I’m not taking it,” Biden responded to a question on whether he would take the vaccine, “I’d be happy to do that when Dr Fauci says we have a vaccine that is safe. That’s the moment in which I will stand before the public.”
“People have lost faith in the ability of the vaccine to work already. Already the numbers are really staggeringly low and [it matters] what the president, the vice president do,” he added.
The interview was remarkable in that it highlighted a developing good and professional working relationship within Biden and Harris themselves, with none of the toxic, blind-sided-in-the-spotlight, rogue one-upmanship tinges that characterized the McCain-Palin relationship even in the dynamic of the Republican duo’s losing campaign for the same roles.
“There couldn’t be a more extreme exercise in the stark contrast between the current occupant of the White House, and the next occupant of the White House,” said Harris, echoing Biden’s “I hope so,” response when asked during the election whether he would be the anti-Trump.
“But, we also want to make sure that the American people know that we are committed,” she continued. “The president-elect and I talked about this all the time, but the people who need it most are going to be a priority.”
Dutifully in her supporting role, Harris also moved to seal the deal on her boss. “The American people deserve in their president someone who is truly patriotic, and that is Joe Biden,” she said with the authority of having been California’s attorney general, and then with the authority of the first woman about to assume the second-highest office, “He is also someone who knows love, who has dedicated his time to public service.”
At moments during the interview, however, Harris became serious and spoke with a mien of lady and lord that showed growing confidence in accepting the new power beneath her soles and the knowledge that power is accepting her.
In an interview of substance very different from the attack-the-newsman blood sport that such interviews had become in the Trump years, small bit by small piece, the mosaic of power began to show the face of Kamala Harris.
