Staff crowded into her ceremonial office to watch her sign the desk, a tradition undertaken by all her predecessors for many decades. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, stood behind her to take a photo as she used her Sharpie marker.
I won’t go quietly into the night,” Harris said Thursday. “Don’t worry about that.
What’s going to happen to her next?
“I’ll let you know how things develop,” she said.
Harris hasn’t made any plans beyond leaving office on Monday, except to fly back to California. It will be the first time since she became San Francisco’s district attorney in 2004 that she won’t hold an elected position.
as the most elderly person ever elected.
Donna Brazile, a well-known leader in the Democratic Party, remembered telling Harris that she needed to take a break and “learn what it’s like to oversleep” for a bit. They both laughed, and she said, “Yeah, you’ll never be able to go back to being ordinary.”
Brazile was the campaign manager for Al Gore, the last vice president serving at the time to run for the top position.
“I’ve had more people ask me about Kamala Harris’s future than about Al Gore’s,” she said.
A common challenge posed by a job with limited formal authority.
Nominated her as his heir.
unable to defeat him.
Several Democrats faulted Biden for launching his campaign, thereby putting Harris in an unenviable role. Harris also faced her own share of criticism.
with voters.
Minyon Moore, who chaired the previous year’s Democratic National Convention, dismissed the criticisms by saying “what could have been, what should be, what was not.”
With Harris facing such an unconventional campaign, Moore stated, “there was no map to guide her in terms of what she should have done.”
And many who are disappointed by Trump’s election victory, especially after the Democrats portrayed him as a danger to the very existence of the country.
No one can give up,” Harris said in one speech. “We have to keep on fighting together. Every single one of us.
To Singapore, Bahrain and Germany, she had a final chance to demonstrate her impact on foreign policy. But she chose to stay in Washington instead, as wildfires raged around Los Angeles. Her own home, located in the Brentwood neighborhood, fell within an evacuation zone.
According to an official in Harris’ office, who requested anonymity to discuss her planning, she decided not to travel to the area because she didn’t think it would be a good idea to take resources away from firefighters responding to the fire.
Despite scrapping her overseas trip, Harris has signaled her desire to remain engaged on the global stage. She has spent her final week in office making phone calls to foreign leaders, including King Abdullah II of Jordan, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo.
He described her as “a great partner,” and they shared a warm hug after the speech.
As she assisted in advancing judicial nominees and landmark legislation.
“Finding her role was a process,” said Joel Goldstein, a historian who has studied the vice presidency. “It took some time for her to figure it out.”
Moore recalls a meeting in the Oval Office with Harris and other high-ranking officials as Biden weighed his options for a U.S. Supreme Court nomination. While it was unlikely a liberal justice would have many chances to write majority opinions on a conservative-dominated court, Moore said Harris prioritized finding a candidate who would make the most of the opportunity to write dissenting opinions.
She became the first Black woman to join the bench, and her decisions, especially those with differing views, receive a lot of attention.
One of Harris’ original jobs, which was to decrease migration from Central America, became a contentious issue. Republicans called her the “border czar” and criticized her for the rise in illegal border crossings. Nevertheless, fewer migrants came from the countries where Harris targeted her efforts.
in Africa to lay the groundwork for renewed U.S. engagement.
As the administration attempted to realign its foreign policy to counter rising Chinese influence.
“Her view is that we should put even more emphasis on this sometimes overlooked part of the world,” said Phil Gordon, Harris’ national security adviser.
On the same topic, and Harris is leading the White House’s efforts.
Lorraine Voles, Harris’ chief of staff, stated the court decision was “a turning point” for the vice president.
That created an opportunity for her in a way it maybe wasn’t there before,” she said. “People weren’t paying attention to the issue of women’s health and reproductive health until they saw it being threatened.
Professor Nadia Brown of Georgetown University, who specializes in politics related to African American women, believes that Harris will be remembered in history for being a trailblazer who overcame racial and gender obstacles in the political field.
She stated that Harris’ time as vice president had broadened the perspectives of “everyday Americans who may have had misconceptions about what a leader could be or should be.”
The main question that remains is what Harris will decide to do next.
There’s still more to come,” Brown said. “But I’m not entirely clear on what that next phase will look like.
