Vice President Kamala Harris told CBS News that she and President Biden will secure a second term in office, even amid Republican criticism and concerns among some Democrats about the president’s age.
“We will win reelection. There’s too much at stake and the American people know it,” Harris told CBS News “Face the Nation” moderator and chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan.
With Harris being 58 and Biden seeking to win next year’s election just before he turns 82, Harris said she is ready to assume the role of commander in chief “if necessary,” but believes Biden “is going to be fine.”
“I work with Joe Biden every day,” she said. “The work that under Joe Biden’s leadership our administration has accomplished is transformative. I think the American people, most of all, want a leader who actually gets things done.”
Harris spoke to CBS News in Jakarta, Indonesia — her third trip to Southeast Asia as vice president — where she attended a summit of Southeast Asian countries. When asked why she has spent so much time in that part of the world, Harris highlighted the importance of the South China Sea to the global supply chain.
“In those seas, one-third of global trade occurs,” she said. “It’s a huge transit point.”
“If it is not secure, if it is not open, if there’s not freedom of navigation, and enforcement of maritime law, what that will mean in terms of impeding supply chains, and how that will relate then to the average American being able to get what they need every day,” Harris said.
She also said an expected meeting between North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss potentially providing Moscow with weapons to support its ongoing war in Ukraine would be a “huge mistake.”
“The idea that they would be supplying ammunition to that end, it would be a huge mistake,” Harris said. “I also believe very strongly that for both Russia and North Korea, this will further isolate them.”
“It is very clear that Russia has clearly — they’re very desperate. They have already experienced a strategic failure,” she said.
“Just think about it. At the beginning of it all a year and a half ago, the pundits were saying that this would be over in days,” Harris said, referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine. “Well, the Ukrainians are still fighting.”
Watch more of Margaret Brennan’s interview with Vice President Kamala Harris this Sunday at 10:30 a.m. ET on “Face the Nation.”
