Tag Archives: Vice President Kamala Harris

U.S. VP Harris’ office shakeup to bring ‘new voices’ into White House, Psaki says

By Nandita Bose

(Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ senior adviser and chief spokesperson Symone Sanders is leaving by the end of the year, the latest high-profile departure from her office amid growing concerns over her communication strategy and how well the first woman to hold the job is being positioned for future political roles.

Sanders, who previously worked for President Joe Biden’s campaign, often traveled with Harris on domestic and foreign trips as the vice president navigated the complex social and political issues Biden has assigned her to tackle.

Harris was tasked in June with leading the Democratic White House’s push to increase voting rights at a time when Republicans are passing dozens of laws that civil rights experts say will make it harder for minorities to vote. She was asked in March to address the root causes of migration from Central America to the U.S. southern border, a problem that has bedeviled multiple presidents.

“It’s natural for staffers who have thrown their heart and soul into a job to be ready to move on to a new challenge after a few years,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said of Sanders’ departure on Thursday. “It’s also an opportunity, as it is in any White House, to bring in new faces, new voices and new perspectives,” she said.

The vice president “values Symone and she is beloved,” said a White House official who did not wish to be identified.

Earlier this month, Ashley Etienne, Harris’ communications director, also left the administration.

A separate White House official familiar with the situation said the departures come amid concerns Harris is not being adequately prepared or positioned for the next natural step in her career, replacing Biden as president, and instead is being sidelined.

Harris has struggled to show she’s making an impact on voting, immigration or other policy priorities during the first year of the Biden administration. At the same time, some Republicans and conservative news outlets have made her a target of personal attacks.

Her approval ratings have been underwater for months.

Sanders, who did not respond to a request seeking comment, sent a note to staff on Wednesday announcing her decision.

“From my first days on the president’s campaign to traveling with the VP when she joined the ticket, to witnessing the historic swearing in of the President and Vice President. It’s been an honor,” she said.

Sanders worked for the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders in 2016 before becoming an adviser on Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. She frequently defended Biden on television and helped him build support with Black voters.

She also made it known, both privately and in her memoir, that she was interested in becoming the White House Press Secretary and the first Black woman to hold the job, but was passed over for the role earlier this year.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington, Additional reporting by Kanishka Singh and Jeff Mason; Editing by Heather Timmons, Kim Coghill and Rosalba O’Brien)

U.S. seeks norms for outer space after ‘irresponsible’ Russia test

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday criticized an “irresponsible” Russian test that endangered the International Space Station with debris, and the Biden administration laid out a new strategy for responsible use of space.

Harris convened the inaugural meeting of the National Space Council and asked members of the government body to promote responsible civil, commercial and national security-related behavior in space, where there are growing commercial interests and concerns about Chinese and Russian competition.

“Without clear norms for the responsible use of space we stand the real risk of threats to our national and global security,” Harris said.

She said Russia’s “irresponsible act” of testing anti-satellite technology last month created debris that endangered the International Space Station (ISS).

U.S. officials have fretted over rising security activity by Washington’s major rivals in space. China’s test of hypersonic weapons this year raised the prospect of an arms race over Earth-orbiting systems that could dodge current missile defenses.

Meanwhile, a growing number of companies, including SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, are seeking to usher in a new era of private commercial space flights following years of private firms working alongside the U.S. government’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in rocket launches.

President Joe Biden also signed an executive order on Wednesday adding the heads of the Education, Labor, Agriculture and Interior Departments as well as his National Climate Advisor to the National Space Council.

The administration also wants the group’s work to increase space climate data and enhance scientific-related efforts that could aid job creation and U.S. competitiveness, it said in a statement.

The National Space Council is separate from the U.S. Space Force military branch created under former President Donald Trump.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Bill Berkrot and David Gregorio)

Harris was briefly first woman to be acting U.S. president as Biden underwent colonoscopy

By Jeff Mason

BETHESDA, Md. (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden briefly transferred power to Vice President Kamala Harris Friday as he underwent a colonoscopy, making her the first woman to hold the presidential reins in U.S. history.

Biden, a Democrat, alerted leaders in Congress of the power transfer at 10:10 a.m. EST (1510 GMT) and took back control at 11:35 EST, the White House said.

The president was undergoing a routine physical at the Walter Reed military hospital outside Washington.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Biden spoke to Harris and White House chief of staff Ron Klain after the procedure and was “in good spirits.”

Biden’s power transfer occurred while he was under anesthesia for the colonoscopy. Harris worked from her office in the West Wing of the White House during that time, Psaki said.

Harris is the first woman to serve as vice president of the United States; no woman has ever been president in the country’s nearly 250-year history.

The U.S. Constitution’s 25th Amendment lays out a process for the president to transfer power when he is unable to discharge his duties.

Presidential power has been transferred to the vice president before, when President George W. Bush had colonoscopies in 2002 and 2007.

Biden, who turns 79 on Saturday, is the oldest person to take office as U.S. president, leading to high interest in his health and well-being. Although speculation has persisted about whether he will run for re-election in 2024, he has said he expects to seek a second four-year term.

Biden has pledged to be more transparent about his health than predecessor Donald Trump. The Republican visited Walter Reed in 2019 for an undisclosed reason that a former press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, later revealed was for a colonoscopy.

Trump once had his doctor brief the press about the president’s health after questions were raised about his mental acuity.

Psaki said the White House would release a comprehensive written summary of Biden’s physical later on Friday.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Alexandra Alper and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Heather Timmons, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)

Democrats to invest $25 million in voter education

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic party will invest $25 million in voter registration and education efforts, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will announce on Thursday, as the Biden administration tries to combat restrictive rules passed by Republican-led legislatures in some states.

Harris, who was assigned by the president to lead the administration’s efforts on voting rights, will make the announcement at her alma mater, the historically Black Howard University.

“This campaign is grounded in the firm belief that everyone’s vote matters,” Harris will say, according to remarks provided by the White House. “We are fighting back.”

Harris and President Joe Biden will meet with civil rights groups later on Thursday including the NAACP, National Urban League, National Action Network and others to “discuss the fight to protect the constitutional right to vote,” the White House said in a statement.

Biden’s fellow Democrats have struggled along with civil rights groups to fight a spate of voting restrictions including measures like Georgia’s ban on providing food or water to voters in long lines and a Florida measure giving more power to partisan election observers. The measures can hamper efforts to vote by Black, Latino and younger voters who have helped elect Democrats.

“Democracy is under attack in states across the nation, and we must act with great urgency to protect the American people’s most fundamental and sacred right, the right to vote,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who is attending the meeting with Biden, said in an emailed statement.

Last month, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic-backed national election reform bill that would have expanded opportunities to vote before Election Day, made certain campaign contributions more transparent and reformed the process for drawing of congressional districts. Republicans said it violated states’ authority to set their own election laws.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Steve Holland and Merdie Nzanga; Editing by David Gregorio, Heather Timmons and Dan Grebler)

At border, U.S. vice president Harris shakes off Republican critics

By Nandita Bose

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) -Vice President Kamala Harris visited a border patrol facility near the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday, aiming to counter claims from Republicans she has been slow to visit the region as part of her role addressing the root causes of immigration.

The trip, her first to the border since becoming vice president five months ago, was announced on Wednesday and appeared to have been hastily put together days before a border visit by former President Donald Trump.

A White House official said Harris’s schedule was not dictated by what the Republican Trump does. “I can assure you we don’t take our cues from the former president,” the official said.

“I said back in March I was going to come to the border, so this is not a new plan,” Harris told reporters after landing in Texas. “Coming to the border … is about looking at the effects of what we have seen happening in Central America.”

Republicans have criticized President Joe Biden, her fellow Democrat, for rolling back restrictive Trump-era immigration policies even as migrant detentions at the U.S.-Mexico border have reached 20-year highs in recent months.

Immigration remains a hot-button issue for both parties. Democrats and pro-immigrant activists have pressed Biden to further scale back enforcement and ensure humane treatment of migrant children and families arriving at the border.

White House officials have for months said Harris’s efforts to stem immigration from Central America are focused on diplomacy and are distinct from the security issues at the border.

“The vice president’s trip to Guatemala and Mexico earlier this year was about the root causes, and this border visit is about the effects,” her spokesperson Symone Sanders, told reporters on Thursday. “Both trips will inform the administration’s root causes strategy.”

Harris, who visited the border as a senator and attorney general from California, was assailed by Republicans when she visited Mexico and Guatemala this month as part of her efforts to lower migration from the region into the United States.

During that trip, Harris said she would visit the border in the near future but was focused on “tangible results” and “opposed to grand gestures.”

Nonetheless, Republicans criticized Harris for choosing El Paso rather than the area they point to as a hot spot for increased border crossings.

“While it’s certainly positive that she is taking this step, I am disappointed that she is not going to the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) – the very epicenter of this crisis,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf under Trump said in a statement.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, managing director of immigration and cross-border policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank, said many Republicans have embraced Trump’s hardline immigration policies as they gear up for U.S. congressional elections in 2022.

As such, they are unlikely to stop their criticism of Biden’s policies, even if Harris visits the border.

“They believe that is something that can win them seats in 2022, so of course they’re going to play it up,” she said. “They’re going to try to make it an issue.”

Harris was accompanied in El Paso by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin and Democratic Representative from Texas Veronica Escobar, who called the El Paso area the new “Ellis Island,” a reference to the famed area in New York Harbor that processed millions of immigrants as they entered the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Ted Hesson, additional reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Kieran Murray and Alistair Bell)

White House sees ‘summer of joy and freedom’ as COVID-19 shots surpass 300 million

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States has administered 300 million COVID-19 vaccinations in 150 days, a White House official said on Friday ahead of President Joe Biden’s scheduled update on his administration’s vaccination program.

Biden’s government-wide push to accelerate vaccinations was paying off, with COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths down to their lowest levels since the start of the pandemic, the officials said.

While Biden would “make clear that there is more work to be done” to ensure an equitable response to the pandemic, the U.S. economy was experiencing its strongest rebound in decades, the White House said.

“The results are clear: America is starting to look like America again, and entering a summer of joy and freedom,” the White House said in a fact sheet.

The news comes days after the United States marked a grim milestone, surpassing 600,000 COVID-19 deaths.

The U.S. death toll remains the highest in the world, although other countries, including Brazil, Britain and Russia, have higher death rates as a measure of their populations.

A White House fact sheet said the number of COVID-19 deaths has decreased by 90% since Biden took office in January, when more than 3,300 Americans were dying each day, and highlighted big gains in the economy as people return to work.

It said more than 175 million Americans had now received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot, and 55% of adults were fully vaccinated.

Addressing racial imbalances in vaccination rates remained a huge and continuing concern, the White House said, but pointed to gains there as well. In the past month, it said, people of color had accounted for 54% of nationwide vaccinations, while making up 40% of the U.S. population.

Vice President Kamala Harris visited a vaccination site at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Friday, underscoring the importance of faith groups and community-based organizations in accelerating vaccinations and overcoming vaccine hesitancy.

“Church is always a healing place. It’s so appropriate that we’re doing this here,” she said in remarks at the historic church where Martin Luther King Jr. and his father once preached.

“We just need to get the word out. One of the most important ways is friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor … please help us get the word out,” Harris said, according to a pool press report on the visit.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Bill Berkrot)

Harris meets Mexico president in effort to lower migration from Central America

By Nandita Bose

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris met Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday as part of her first trip abroad since taking office as she tries to lower migration from Central America which has spiked in recent months.

Harris and Lopez Obrador witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on development agencies working in Central America.

The accord is aimed at reducing the number of migrants from Central America’s Northern Triangle countries – Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras – to the United States through Mexico.

Since President Joe Biden took office in January, the number of migrants taken into custody per month at the U.S.-Mexico border has risen to the highest levels in 20 years. Many are from Central America.

Harris has been tasked by Biden to address the migrant flow.

On a visit to Guatemala on Monday, she told potential migrants “Do not come,” to the United States.

She visits Mexico after midterm elections on Sunday eroded Lopez Obrador’s power base in Congress,

Lopez Obrador’s leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party held the lower house of Congress but was weakened. The party dominated state votes.

A Mexican government official said the timing of Harris’ visit was not ideal. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the United States had pushed for the visit.

When asked if the election results would change the U.S. strategy in Mexico, Ricardo Zuniga, the Biden administration’s special envoy to the Northern Triangle countries, said the relationship does not depend on who is in power or domestic politics. “It really doesn’t impact our plans.”

Harris spokeswoman and senior adviser Symone Sanders said late on Monday the vice president’s meeting with Lopez Obrador will follow up on a virtual meeting they had in May.

Sanders said Harris on Tuesday will look to build on topics discussed during the May meeting such as the two countries jointly agreeing to secure their borders and bolster human rights protections and spurring economic development in the Northern Triangle countries and in southern Mexico.

They will also discuss migration specifically to the U.S.-Mexico border by stepping up enforcement, Sanders said.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, however, said ahead of the meeting on Tuesday that migration enforcement would not be part of the discussion.

Temporary work visas would be on the agenda, Ebrard said, as well as expanding options in Central America.

“We are not going to talk about operations or other things,” Ebrard said.

“What is going to be the focus of attention today is how we can promote development in the short term in these three countries,” he added, referring to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The Biden administration has been overwhelmed by the number of migrant children and families arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, mostly from Central America and has looked to Mexico for help in slowing transit across its territory.

On Monday, Harris met with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and said the two leaders had “robust” talks on fighting corruption to deter migration from Central America.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Mexico City, additional reporting by Dave Graham, writing by Cassandra GarrisonEditing by Nick Zieminski and Alistair Bell)

Harris says talks in Guatemala were robust, tells migrants: ‘do not come’

By Nandita Bose and Sofia Menchu

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Monday she had “robust” talks with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei on the need to fight corruption to help deter undocumented immigration from Central America to the United States.

At a news conference with Giammattei, Harris said a U.S. task force would work with local prosecutors to punish corrupt actors in the region.

The Biden administration has identified corruption as an underlying cause of the poverty and violence driving record numbers of Central Americans to go to the United States

In the build up to Harris’ visit to Guatemala, her first official overseas trip, differences of opinion emerged about the fight against graft, with corruption fighters feted by Washington being criticized by Giammattei.

“We had a robust, candid and thorough conversation,” Harris said at the news conference after a three-hour meeting with Giammattei, who said they had discussed U.S. concerns about developments in Guatemala.

“The president and I discussed the importance of anti-corruption and the importance of an independent judiciary,” Harris said. Washington has criticized the removal of a senior judge from Guatemala’s top court, in what Giammattei has argued was a legitimate process.

The corruption task force has been previously floated, but Harris gave more details, saying it will combine resources from the Justice, State and Treasury departments.

Giammattei defended his own record in fighting corruption, saying he had not been accused of wrongdoing and saying graft was not only a problem faced by politicians. The fight against drug trafficking needed to be an integral part of tackling corruption, he said.

On the immigration front he announced a new processing center for migrants sent back from Mexico and the United States, which could increase capacity. He said the focus of the two countries should be on creating prosperity.

Most Guatemalan migrants leave because of poverty, he said, and come from a few rural municipalities. Harris said Guatemalans should not take the dangerous journey north.

“Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders,” she said.

“If you come to our border, you will be turned back.”

Democrat Harris responded to questions about Republican criticism that she had not done enough to stem migration in the short term, saying she was working on the ground in Guatemala.

“I’m just focused on that kind of work as opposed to grand gestures,” she said.

The Biden administration on Monday also unveiled details of another task force of prosecutors to combat human smuggling in Central America and Mexico.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said the Joint Task Force Alpha would marshal Justice Department and Homeland Security resources against “the most prolific and dangerous” human smuggling and trafficking groups in the region, according to a statement. It said the group will complement the efforts to build cases against corrupt actors.

However, Washington’s push to tackle “root causes” of migration in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have been undermined by a backlash against anti-corruption bodies the United States considers independent but that local elites say are biased.

Harris will also meet civil society leaders and entrepreneurs in Guatemala and then go to Mexico. Priorities include economic development, climate and food insecurity and women’s issues, White House officials said.

There has been criticism from some officials in Guatemala and Mexico over the timing and thrust of Harris’ mission, with the Mexico talks scheduled on Tuesday, just days after mid-term elections there.

Harris said she discussed sharing COVID-19 vaccines with Guatemala during Monday’s meeting. She confirmed that the United States would supply half a million COVID-19 doses to Guatemala and provide $26 million to fight the pandemic.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Guatemala City; Additional reporting by Sofia Menchu in Guatemala CityEditing by Frank Jack Daniel, Sonya Hepinstall and Grant McCool)

Microsoft, Mastercard sign on to VP Harris’s Central America strategy

By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Twelve companies and groups including Microsoft Corp, Mastercard and Nestle’s Nespresso on Thursday will commit to making investments in Central America – a win for Vice President Kamala Harris as she aims to lower migration from the region into the United States.

President Joe Biden has tasked Harris with leading U.S. efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Since then, Harris has taken a series of steps aimed at improving conditions and lowering migration from the region.

Harris, who met with officials from these companies and groups on Thursday, said economic opportunities in the region can be boosted via partnerships with the private sector.

“In order for us as an administration, the United States government, to maximize the potential of our work, it has to be through collaboration, through public-private partnerships,” Harris told reporters at the start of the meeting.

The meeting was attended by top executives from yogurt maker Chobani, food giant Nestle’s Nespresso unit, financial companies Bancolombia and Davivienda as well as language-learning website Duolingo.

Commitments by the companies include Microsoft agreeing to expand internet access to as many as three million people in the region by July 2022 and Nespresso’s plans to begin buying some of its coffee from El Salvador and Honduras with a minimum regional investment of $150 million by 2025, a White House official said.

Chobani has agreed to bring its incubator program for local entrepreneurs to Guatemala while Mastercard will aim to bring five million people in the region who currently lack banking services into the financial system and give one million micro and small businesses access to electronic banking, the official said.

The U.S. vice president’s push to spur regional economic growth will focus on six areas.

These include expanding affordable internet access, combating food shortages by boosting farm productivity and backing regional efforts to fight climate change and make a transition to clean energy.

It will also aim to expand job training programs and improve public health access.

In April, Harris unveiled an additional $310 million in U.S. aid to Central America. She is expected to visit Guatemala and Mexico on June 7 and 8 – her first overseas trip as vice president.

U.S. officials see corruption as a major contributor to a migrant exodus from the region, along with gang violence and natural disasters, issues that represent hurdles for companies investing in the region.

Some Central American leaders recently pushed back on the Biden administration’s anti-corruption strategy, which included releasing a list labeling 17 regional politicians as corrupt.

On his trip next week to Costa Rica, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to use meetings with his Central American and Mexican counterparts gathered there to address corruption, governance and rule-of-law issues, said Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs.

“These are some of the issues that are the drivers of why people leave their homes in the first place,” Chung told reporters in a briefing ahead of Blinken’s June 1-2 trip. “They don’t have confidence in their governments.”

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Humeyra Pamuk, Editing by Devika Syamnath and Alistair Bell)

White House labor task force holds first meeting to help more workers join unions

By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The White House labor task force, headed by Vice President Kamala Harris, is set to meet for the first time on Thursday, to promote labor organizing at a time when just over 6% of U.S. private-sector workers belong to unions, according to White House officials and the Department of Labor.

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh will serve as vice chair of the group and will attend the meeting in person, a Labor Department spokesperson said.

President Joe Biden last month signed an executive order to create the task force, whose goals include facilitating worker organizing around the United States, increasing union membership and addressing challenges to labor organizing in underserved communities.

Biden’s executive order directed the task force to devise a set of recommendations within 180 days to address two key issues: How existing policies can promote labor organizing in the federal government, and looking at necessary new policies and the associated regulatory challenges.

Biden is widely considered to be the most pro-union president in decades and has earned praise from the country’s labor leaders. He has moved quickly to oust government officials whom unions deemed hostile to labor and reversed Trump-era rules that weakened worker protections.

The task force, which includes more than 20 heads of agencies and Cabinet officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, is an extraordinary effort by the president to help reverse the decades-long decline in union membership and power, labor experts said.

Over 65 percent of Americans approve of unions, the most since 2003, according to a 2020 Gallup poll, despite the much lower membership rate.

The labor movement faced one of its biggest setbacks in recent history after an organizing drive at an Amazon.com facility failed earlier this month.

Unions have lobbied for the passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, which prohibits employers from holding anti-union meetings and imposes penalties for violating workers’ rights. The House passed the measure in March and Biden supports the legislation, but it faces long odds in the Senate.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham, William Maclean)