Since she lost the race to Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris has kept a low profile. She has been on vacation in Hawaii with a second gentleman Doug Emhoff since last week.
Harris arrived in Kalaoa, Hawaii, on Tuesday for a trip that is expected to last a week. The trip will give her a break from her busy campaign schedule over the last couple of months as well as from her duties as vice president and president of the Senate during the last few months of President Biden’s administration.
Some people are worried about the vice president’s trip because it happened at a time when many DNC employees weren’t sure what their futures hold, while others were shocked when they were suddenly fired.
A White House briefing on Thursday heard White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defend Harris’s vacation, saying there was nothing “wrong” with the vice president having a break.
“The vice president took some time off to spend with her family.” That doesn’t seem wrong to me. I think she deserves some free time and time to spend with her family. Over the last four years, she has worked very hard. It’s great that she is taking a few days off to be with her family. Jean-Pierre told her, “Good for her.”
An NBC News story from last week said that Harris will still be very important in helping Biden get a number of judges confirmed as Democrats race against the clock to get more than the 234 judges confirmed during Trump’s first term.
The Democrats have a very small majority in the upper house. Last year, Harris broke the record for the most decisive votes cast by any vice president in history, according to the report. Democrats are likely to rely on Harris again in the coming weeks.
A top Harris staff member told NBC News, “They want to clear the decks on this.”
“She will be available for any tie votes,” said a second top official.
A third source told the news site, “It is a big deal.”
The story also said that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said on Tuesday that she had been told that Harris would be available, but she had not talked to Harris personally.
“The goal is to fill every judicial nomination that we can,” she said.
A top Harris staff member told NBC News that the vice president had already pushed back her trip in case she was needed in the Senate. However, many of those votes are now expected to happen in December, when Harris is back in Washington.
Source: Harris disappears from spotlight, vacations in Hawaii after election loss
