Harris’s defense credentials get fresh scrutiny with war looming in Middle East

Vice President Harris’s credentials to become the nation’s commander in chief are coming under scrutiny as the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran threatens to break out into a wider war in the Middle East.

The prospect of the winner of November’s election becoming a wartime president is becoming more real after Iran sent more than 180 ballistic missiles into Israel on Tuesday — a day after the U.S. released video of a Russian fighter jet coming within feet of colliding with an American F-16 just off the Alaskan coast last month.

Both candidates have largely focused on domestic issues, though former President Trump has begun to turn up the heat on Harris over foreign policy and defense, seeking to get voters to question the vice president’s ability to handle a world in turmoil.

Trump warned Tuesday that “the world right now is spiraling out of control” and accused “a non-existent president and our Vice President, who should be in charge” of “going to fundraisers in San Francisco” instead of prioritizing national security.

The former president has repeatedly argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israel would not have happened if he were president.

His running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), doubled down on that idea during Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, arguing that when Trump was president, he projected “effective deterrence” by making U.S. enemies not want to risk striking out.

Some polls have pointed to a weakness for Harris on defense and foreign policy.

A CNN/SSRS poll of more than 2,000 registered voters nationwide conducted Sept. 19-22 found Trump leading Harris on the question of who would best handle foreign policy, 47 percent to 38 percent. Among likely voters, 47 percent trust Trump more than Harris on foreign policy, while 40 percent trust Harris more.

It’s a shift from four years ago, when Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden led Trump on the same question by a margin of 54 percent to 42 percent.

Harris’s campaign has pushed back at the Trump case by noting that more than 700 national security officials last month signed a letter endorsing Harris, including former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who served as secretary of Defense in the Obama administration.

A number of Republicans seen as hawkish on national defense have come out in support of Harris, including, in a somewhat head-spinning turn, former Vice President Dick Cheney. Trump, for his part, has long criticized the policies of former President George W. Bush’s administration, particularly its handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Randy Manner, one of the 741 officials who signed the letter endorsing Harris, said the vice president has the humility to listen to the advice of experts, and argued that Trump often ignores such advice. He also downplayed polls showing Trump with an edge on foreign policy and defense.

“The average American is not educated about national security policy and international events,” he said when asked about Trump’s polling lead on foreign policy. “You take polls with a grain of salt.”

Manner emphasized the number of Republican military leaders who have endorsed Harris.

“Trump does not have the expertise — he thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. He does not rely on the expertise of others. In contrast, Vice President Harris through her much more traditional perspective, she knows she’s not the smartest people in the room, she relies on the competence of the experts to try to find a balanced way to best approach a problem and then to make the final decision,” he said.

Democratic lawmakers have also defended Harris.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) told The Hill that “Kamala Harris can be a strong commander-in-chief on Day One,” pointing to the Biden administration’s efforts to “box in” Chinese aggression with stronger alliances with the Philippines, Australia, India, Japan and South Korea.  

He argued that “Trump’s entire national security Cabinet” has turned against him and argued “he should be nowhere near the Oval Office and the nuclear codes, because he’s a threat to national security.” This group of ex-Trump officials includes former Defense Secretary James Mattis, former national security adviser John Bolton and former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.  

Danielle Pletka, a distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute specializing in foreign and defense policy and the Middle East, argued Harris has compiled an unimpressive national security record.

“Her problem is that she’s very well-known in Washington as a follower, not a leader,” she said.

“The fact that she doesn’t like to do anything unless she has her wingman,” running mate Tim Walz, “suggests that there’s even more hesitation on her part and how to lead and what to say when challenged,” Pletka added, referring to Harris sitting down with Walz for her first major national interview after becoming the Democratic nominee for president.

“I’ll say this about Hillary Clinton: Hillary Clinton is not dumbfounded in an interview. Hillary Clinton is not afraid of Fox News. Kamala Harris is, and being a foreign policy person, let me just say that Fox News ain’t nothing [compared to] Hamas and Hezbollah and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” she added. “I shutter to think of her up against [Chinese President] Xi Jinping.”

At the same time, Pletka said Trump has failed to fully capitalize on voters’ uncertainty about Harris’s ability to serve as commander in chief by following “a very narrow script” focused on immigration and other domestic issues.

Trump’s campaign is stepping up attacks on the Biden-Harris administration’s Iran policy by putting a spotlight on the billions of dollars in revenues Iran collected by exporting oil because of weak sanctions enforcement.

“The recent developments with Iran and Hezbollah have brought into sharp focus Kamala Harris’s lack of qualifications on the foreign policy and national security front,” said John Ullyot, Trump’s former national security spokesperson.

“Now that we’re possibly on the brink of possibly a nuclear conflagration in the Middle East, let alone what’s happening in the Ukraine … that has now become a real focus of voters in November and it’s just changed in the last week.”

David Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official and the former CEO and editor of Foreign Policy magazine, pointed to Harris’s extensive international travel while vice president, highlighting her multiple meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and with NATO allies seeking to build support for U.S. efforts in Ukraine.

He also highlighted her engagement with Mideast regional leaders seeking to manage the Israel-Gaza crisis, efforts to build international support to counterbalance China and meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 to smooth fallout from a dispute over a U.S.-Australia nuclear submarine deal.

Harris’s role in the Biden’s decision to complete the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, which turned chaotic as the U.S.-backed government swiftly collapsed before advancing Taliban troops, is getting a fresh look from Republicans.

Harris told CNN in an interview in April that she was the last person in the room before Biden made the decision to pull out of Afghanistan, which some Republicans have slammed as a disaster.

Vance has accused the Biden administration of failing to take accountability for an attack at Bagram Air Base that killed 13 U.S. service members in 2021.

“Three years ago, 13 brave, innocent Americans died, and they died because Kamala Harris refused to do her job, and there hasn’t been a single investigation or a single firing,” Vance said on the campaign trail several weeks ago.

Harris, however, received the endorsement of retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, who wrote in a New York Times op-ed last week that Harris “has the strength, the temperament and, importantly, the values to serve as commander in chief.”

“When she sits down with world leaders like President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, representing the United States on the global stage, I have no doubt that she is working in our national interest, not her own,” he wrote.