Dem
51
GOP
49
Another possible angle for the Trump/Vance campaign is to highlight Kamala Harris' and Tim Walz' lack of foreign policy experience. After all, Trump spent 4 years as America's chief diplomat, even if he often did not pay attention, and he wasn't very good at it. Harris' and Walz' backgrounds are both in state-level politics, and do not include foreign policy chops, right?
Not so fast. You could certainly argue that Walz' time spent in China (as a teacher) and in Italy (as a soldier), as well as his gubernatorial dealings with Canada (trade pacts) give him some insight. Meanwhile, and this doesn't seem to have been public knowledge until recently, Harris has apparently been a key member of Joe Biden's foreign policy team.
Biden himself, of course, is a pro in the area of foreign policy. By virtue of his long service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and then his work as an envoy for Barack Obama, he came to the White House with the strongest foreign policy credentials of any president since Richard Nixon. And it turns out that Biden made Harris into something of an apprentice in this area. She attends nearly every National Security Council meeting and, perhaps more importantly, almost every President's Daily Brief. According to insiders, she listens carefully, asks questions, and always stays until the very end of the sessions. What this means, among other things, is that she is entirely up-to-date on what's going on in terms of U.S. intelligence and security, and she presumably knows many things that are not public information.
Harris has also gotten hands-on experience. She's taken 17 foreign trips on behalf of the Biden administration, visiting 21 countries and meeting with more than 150 foreign leaders. She's also led the U.S. delegation at several events, including three Munich Security Conferences. Some of these events were just paint-by-numbers diplomacy—going to the funerals of foreign leaders, for example—but others required substantive efforts on her part. In particular, and as is widely known by now, she was deeply involved in securing the release of prisoners from Russia.
Attacking a candidate's foreign policy credentials is easy, particularly when you can say something like "How much foreign policy do they conduct in the People's Republic of Communist-fornia?" And responding to such attacks can be tough. But if you have the bona fides, and Harris apparently does, it's possible. In particular, if Trump tries to hit her on foreign policy knowledge during the debate, she could well reel off a Hillary Clinton-style answer that makes clear that she knows the issues and the players very, very well. It's enough a risk that Trump probably shouldn't try it. And so, another line of attack looks to be a loser. (Z)