Vice President Harris told me in a backstage conversation for “Axios on HBO” that the Trump administration had “no reserve” of vaccines on leaving office.
The big picture: “There was no strategy or national plan for vaccines, we left it to states and local leaders to try to figure it out,” Harris told me at the White House after leading a COVID virtual event with African American mayors.
- “In a lot of ways, we’re starting from scratch on something that’s been going on for almost a year now.”
Harris said he constantly pushes his team to the question, “Can we do more? Where is there capacity to do more?”
- “The suffering,” he said, “is so immense in terms of the public health crisis, the number of people who have died, the number of people who have contracted it, and the economic crisis.”
- “So we’re in the middle of a hurricane that’s still raging, which requires us (each of us who are in a leadership position) to constantly ask ourselves, ‘Are we doing enough?'”
- “We have to figure out a way, which has to be our standard. Our standard has to be, ‘Everything is possible, but we’re going to have to work like hell to do it.’ patience for delay, nor patience for “It can’t be done. You know, that’s how I feel about it.”
Asked what his signature number will be, Harris said with a laugh, “Make sure Joe Biden is a hit.”
- I asked him the question about the trademark of the late New York Mayor Ed Koch: “How am I?”
- “Three weeks pass,” Harris replied with a laugh. “Give me a break!”
When Harris left, I asked him if his predecessor, Vice President Mike Pence, had left him a note.
- She said she had it, but left the details like a cliffhanger.
- I’m told Pence left the note in the vice wing’s Western Wing office. He was friendly from the Midwest: he said it had been a lifelong honor to serve at work and wished Harris all the best for his own success.