Seeing a Harris Honeymoon: The Story of a Failure of the Border Czar and its Implications for American Policy and Politics
She enjoys the party unity because she doesn’t have to deal with a Democratic primary battle. I’ve described this as the equivalent of a video game cheat code that lets you skip past some difficult but tedious early levels on the way to directly fighting the big bad boss at the end of the game. Harris didn’t have to spend the last year getting pummeled by, or trying to pummel, Democratic presidential rivals, almost certainly including some of the very Democrats who are now under consideration to be her vice-presidential nominee. While some of the out-of-the-mainstream views she espoused during her unsuccessful 2020 presidential run will no doubt follow her in this election, Ms. Harris benefits greatly from not yet having had to renavigate several issues that divide the Democratic Party these days, including border security, crime and policing, and the war in Gaza.
Whether you like Donald Trump or not, Tony Fabrizio, a top adviser to all of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaigns, knows his business. He saw a path to a Trump victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016 that others didn’t. Campaigns often leak polling memos to drive a preferred narrative, so it’s sensible to take such memos with a grain of salt, but when Mr. Fabrizio puts one out, I take it seriously.
It was only a matter of time before the public polls would show what the Trump campaign was likely seeing, and I knew when he warned of a Harris Honeymoon that it was only a matter of time. Two days later, there it was: the New York Times/Siena College poll showed the race narrowing to just a one-point Trump advantage nationally over Vice President Kamala Harris among likely voters, a major shift from a prior Times/Siena poll which had shown Mr. Trump ahead of President Biden by six points.
Republicans attacked Harris as a failed border czar who did very little to stop migration even though President Biden had asked her early on to find ways to address root causes of migration from Northern Triangle countries. Former President Donald Trump had made border security one of his signature issues, building a wall on the southern border and using various restrictions to try to cut back on immigration.
On Tuesday, Harris tried to turn the tables on this narrative, painting herself as a hard-charging attorney general of a border state who had walked underground tunnels between Mexico and California with law enforcement.
“I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers that came into our country illegally. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” Harris said. She said that President Donald Trump does not walk the walk when it comes to securing the border.
Her first foreign trip was to Guatemala and Mexico, and Republicans slammed her for not first visiting border communities grappling with increased numbers of people. And then she became irritated in an NBC interview, fueling Republican criticism back home.
Republicans in Congress backed away from that bill, after some in the Senate had initially supported it. Harris, like Biden, blamed Trump for tanking the bill, because the issue of immigration played well for him. The same goals were achieved by the executive action taken by Biden, which is being challenged in court.
“Donald Trump does not care about border security — he only cares about himself,” Harris said. She said that if she were to become the president she would bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed and sign it into law.
She talked about banning hidden fees and banks’surprise late charges as the issue of price gouging would be the first issue. She vowed to take on landlords who increase rent unfairly as well as to cap prescription drug prices. Harris also mentioned the importance of affordable health care, child care and paid leave policies.
Harris acknowledged that people don’t think the US economy is strong. “Prices are still too high: you know it and I know it,” she said.