A top European official was caught on a hot mic earlier this year blasting Kamala Harris as “invisible” and arguing that the vice president “would never win an election.”
Isabel Schnabel, an executive board member of the European Central Bank, provided her damning assessment of President Biden’s potential replacement in February during a private conversation prior to an event, Politico reported on Monday.
“They should have built up another candidate to Kamala Harris from the beginning,” Schnabel said in private remarks, unaware that she was on a livestream with audio.
“She would never win an election, I mean that’s hopeless,” the European banking official said of Harris.
“I don’t even know her because she has been so invisible,” Schnabel added.
The ECB told Politico that Schnabel’s remarks were “misleading” and noted that the official “never comments in public on political events.”
However, other European officials have privately defended Schnabel’s assessment of Harris, noting that it was difficult to connect with Biden’s No. 2.
“There is an argument that the EU should have made more of an effort to cultivate relations with Harris, given Biden’s age,” a senior EU official told the outlet. “But on the other hand, she didn’t exactly make that easy. It wasn’t easy to find occasions to meet Harris.”
When Harris has been visible, her public remarks overseas have rankled some across the pond.
Harris’ speech at a 2023 United Kingdom summit on artificial intelligence was described as “banal” and contradictory to the theme of the conference by one attendee.
It left such a bad taste in the mouth of the British government that it privately conveyed its concerns with Harris’ remarks to White House officials after the event, according to Politico.
European officials who met with the 59-year-old vice president at the Munich Security Conference in February told the outlet that Harris put on “a split-screen persona” at the gathering, describing her as “engaged” and “charismatic” in private but “highly scripted” in public settings.
The 81-year-old president’s shocking withdrawal from the 2024 race, and endorsement of Harris to take up the mantle, now have European officials scrambling to figure out the vice president.
“A lot of work will be going on to map out what a Kamala presidency will look like and what she thinks and feels about issues, and how we deal with her and the people around her,” a UK official said. “I mean, I think we really need to see her VP, and then we can assess the whole ticket and kind of get our claws into every bit of the ticket.”
