Back in 2021, President Joe Biden saddled Vice President Kamala Harris with the task of being in charge of handling the issues along the southern border. Unsurprisingly, she completely failed in her task. The U.S. sported one of its worst-ever years in regard to the number of illegal immigrants surging across the border. Despite her promise to get right to the “root causes” of the surge in illegal immigration, it seems that such a solution will have to be placed on the backburner for now. Despite her failure, she has now been given the much more important task of bolstering support for Ukraine in Europe among various American allies and will be heading over to Munich soon for a planned international conference, reported the State Department this past week.
“Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Munich, Germany to attend the February 18-20 Munich Security Conference,” explained the state department in a release put forward Thursday morning.
“Building on the Biden-Harris Administration’s intensive engagement with European allies and partners, the Vice President’s engagements in Munich will demonstrate our ironclad commitment to our NATO Allies, reaffirm our shared interest in upholding the principles that have underpinned European peace and security since World War II, and underscore our commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” explained Sabrina Singh, the Deputy Press Secretary.
The choice to give Harris the lead on this came just a few days in the wake of White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki telling the media that the Biden administration is prepared for anything that Russian President Vladimir Putin could throw at them. As reported by The Daily Wire:
“We’re pursuing a two-track approach, which includes deterrence and diplomacy,” Psaki said when asked about communications from the White House regarding the situation in Europe. “We’re ready either way for whatever decision President Putin might make.”
“Being prepared is exactly what we can do from the U.S. government, in coordination and in partnership with our NATO allies, our partners in Eastern Europe, and of course, the Ukrainians,” she added. “So we don’t actually see it as a conflict.”
While some see this choice of sending Harris to Munich as a vote of confidence in the vice president’s court, many others could interpret it as a warning that Ukraine is standing on the knifes edge of total disaster. This past November, many aides issued complaints to CNN that Biden’s team was always intentionally setting the VP up for failure. The network stated:
Top aides say privately they have come to regret that Harris didn’t ask for more well-defined assignments coming into the administration, which would have allowed her to distinguish herself, but the vice president herself has been reluctant to make demands for any at this point, feeling that would look disloyal to Biden.
“They’re consistently sending her out there on losing issues in the wrong situations for her skill set,” said a former high-level Harris aide.
As an example, Harris has, in the past, stated that one of her assignments along the southern was entirely more complicated than any of the American people understood, which supposedly explains her failure.
“We can’t just flip a switch and make it better,” claimed Harris to ABC News. “The reality is that we inherited an immigration system that was deeply broken. On the root causes piece, what we’re looking at is, frankly, people don’t want to leave home. And when they do, it’s because of two reasons. Either they’re fleeing some kind of harm, or to stay at home, they simply cannot satisfy the needs of their families.”
When questioned about why she had not visited the southern, Harris tried to defend herself by sarcastically exclaiming, “And I haven’t been to Europe” as a response to her critics. She did end up visiting the border but to no avail.