Second gentleman Doug Emhoff ended a weighty trip through Eastern Europe on Wednesday to mark the Holocaust and build his effort to draw up the Biden administration’s blueprint against antisemitism.
“Today is the last day of my trip to Poland and Germany. It’s been intense. I’ve seen a lot, and it’s really going to inform the work moving forward,” he said in Berlin. “And what is that work? Honoring the victims of the Holocaust.”
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It was his latest bid to step out of his wife’s shadow and onto the national and international stage.
His next stop is the United Nations, where he is expected to present elements of the administration’s plan.
Emhoff is proving a quick learner of national politics and becoming a valuable member of the Biden team.
I’m still processing what I saw today at Auschwitz. It was emotional. Displays of children’s shoes. Piles of women’s hair.
We must educate the next generation on the horrors of the Holocaust and call out those who deny it. pic.twitter.com/a6NjlTvYqd
— Douglas Emhoff (@SecondGentleman) January 27, 2023
A year ago, he told reporters, “I’m just getting into public service, but I love it. I wish I had done it earlier.”
Now, he’s leading international delegations.
His emergence as a key player comes as many Democrats, even White House insiders, are growing concerned that the vice president isn’t pulling her weight. According to one, outgoing White House chief of staff Ron Klain has pushed Harris to do more.
“Ron Klain has told her repeatedly, ‘You can’t score runs from the dugout.’ He’s encouraged her to get out there and be higher profile, and she hasn’t,” said author Chris Whipple, who spent the last two years inside the White House documenting the Biden presidency.
Harris has been dispatched on key missions for Biden. On Wednesday, she spoke at the funeral of Tyre Nichols, whose death after being beaten and arrested in Memphis, Tennessee, led to the firing of at least seven police and rescue officials.
But she is often mocked for her “word salads.” On Tuesday, she presented the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to former NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken.
Kamala Harris on astronauts:
“They strapped in to their seats and waited as the tanks beneath them filled with tens of thousands of gallons of fuel. And then they launched! Yeah, they did!”
It’s like a 5-year old wrote this.pic.twitter.com/JrEYaebMQ6
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 31, 2023
Harris said, “Which brings me to May 30, 2020. Bob and Doug returned to the Kennedy Space Center. They suited up. They waved to their families, and they rode an elevator up nearly 20 stories. They strapped into their seats and waited as the tanks beneath filled with tens of thousands of gallons of fuel. And then they launched. Yeah, they did.”
Twitter critics hit hard, calling her words childish and patronizing. “It’s like a 5-year-old wrote this,” tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz’s communications adviser Steve Guest.
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In contrasting photos this week, Harris was shown picking through a selection of sweets at a Raleigh, North Carolina, bakery, while another showed her husband laying a wreath at Auschwitz, marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp in Poland.
“It was a real emotional and intense way to finish the trip,” he said.
