Sen. Kamala Harris wavered on a question about 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s Cuba policy ahead of her visit to Miami.
When asked whether Biden and Harris would resume diplomatic relations with Cuba if they won the White House in the fall, the California senator only said that “the Cuban American population” was “such a vital and important part of who we are as Americans.”
“We have to respect and understand their experience and history with a lot of these issues,” she told an ABC affiliate in Miami.
Harris, Biden’s running mate, added a Biden-Harris administration would consult with “our Cuban American brothers and sisters” on the best position.
“In fact, Joe has said very often that our Cuban American leaders really are the best situated to be the ambassadors on these issues, and so, that’s going to be our approach,” she said over the Labor Day long weekend.
During the primary, Biden, the two-term vice president and ex-Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, indicated he “would, in a large part,” “go back” to former President Barack Obama’s stance of resetting ties with Cuba, despite Cuban backing of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
“I’d still insist they keep the commitments they said they would make when we, in fact, set the policy in place,” Biden told CBS Miami in April. “What we did when we changed the policy, we began to be open up and get so much more support within the region. And that’s what we should be doing now. There’s no reason to continue the policy that was in — that this president’s put in place.”
Biden is leading Trump in Florida by an average of 1.2 percentage points by RealClearPolitics’s count and 2.8 points, according to FiveThirtyEight. But Pew Research Center data earlier in September showed Biden trailing 2016 Democratic standard-bearer Hillary Clinton’s performance with Hispanic voters in the critical swing state.
Harris and husband Doug Emhoff are traveling to Miami on Thursday. The senator will talk to locals about issues facing African Americans in South Florida. Emhoff will host an event to discuss issues affecting the Jewish community.
Biden will follow the prospective second couple to an undisclosed location in Florida on Tuesday.
