Kamala Harris has held two of the best political jobs in Washington if you don’t care about getting results: U.S. senator and vice president.
So it’s hard to know precisely how servicemembers, veterans and U.S. national security would be handled if she wins the White House and becomes President Harris. She has a slim record on these issues and seems intent on saying as little as possible about anything before the November vote.
But although her record is slim, there is a record — one that should send Americans who serve rushing to vote for former President Trump instead.
Harris’s work in the Senate displayed both a failure to understand how to best defend America, and a disregard for the individual men and women who provide that defense. After President Trump ordered the strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, a U.S.-designated terrorist, Harris criticized the move and said it “put more American lives at risk and could lead to a new war in the Middle East.”
Soon after Harris criticized the Trump strike in 2020, she voted to restrict Trump’s ability to respond militarily to Iranian aggression. And before that, she voted against the bipartisan Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019, which gave military support to Israel and Jordan and imposed sanctions against Syria.
These positions don’t exactly give servicemembers any confidence in her ability to lead as America’s commander in chief. And just in case her record doesn’t completely tank the morale of those who serve, Harris routinely opposed pay increases for the military.
She voted against a defense policy bill for fiscal 2019 that included a 2.6 percent pay raise for servicemembers, and she didn’t vote on the same bill the following year, which offered a 3.1 percent pay raise. The year after that, she voted against a 3 percent pay raise. She is an original co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act of 2019, which would eliminate the military health care system TRICARE.
Harris has also been a disaster for veterans. She opposes health care choice granted under the bipartisan MISSION Act, and co-signed a 2019 letter opposing the Trump administration’s plan to implement that law.
Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, isn’t any better, as he voted against the MISSION Act.
Since she became vice president, Harris has often reminded people that she’s a big part of the decision-making process inside the Biden administration, but her record has been a disaster.
Under her watch, the Biden administration ended the Department of Veterans’ Affairs use of the landmark VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017, signed into law by President Trump. That law, which was aimed at increasing accountability after the Obama administration’s VA scandals, contributed to a dramatic increase in VA trust among veterans, from 59 percent to 80 percent.
The administration has also severely undermined the MISSION Act, making it harder for veterans to get timely health care in the private sector. This was a law championed by both Republicans and Democrats, but Biden-Harris is doing all it can to ignore this critical breakthrough and is consistently denying veterans their health care choice.
Harris has also continued to show off her stunning incompetence when it comes to national security. She stressed that she played a “key role” in the administration’s disastrous decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 2021, which led to the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers. She also kept an interest in helping Iran by supporting a move to rejoin the calamitous Iran nuclear deal.
Harris’s disregard for all things national security and the Americans responsible for securing it was best summed up by Harris herself, when she tweeted the day before Memorial Day in 2021, “Enjoy the long weekend.” After withering criticism, Harris tweeted the next day, “We honor those members of our military who sacrificed their lives in order to defend our freedoms.” To those of us still here, it felt like a dismissive comment that perfectly matches her dismissive actions.
Kamala Harris is running to become America’s commander in chief, with Walz as her top adviser. There is no doubt that in both word and deed, both candidates fall short of what’s best for the military, our veterans and America’s national security.
Peter O’Rourke is the former Veterans Affairs acting secretary and chief of staff. He was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force and enlisted airman in the U.S. Navy. Darin Selnick is the former veteran affairs adviser on the Trump White House Domestic Policy Council and a former senior adviser to the secretary of Veterans’ Affairs. He is also a retired captain in the U.S. Air Force.