Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a terse response during an interview on Univision after she was pressed on when she will travel to the U.S.-Mexico border.
During an interview with Univision on Thursday, Harris was asked when she will visit the border.
“I’ve said I’m going to go to the border,” Harris began before host Ilia Calderón interrupted to ask, “When are you going to the border, vice president?”
Harris responded, “I’m not finished… I’ve said I’m going to the border, and also, if we are going to deal with the problems at the border, we have to deal with the problems that cause people to go to the border, to flee to the border. And that is the root causes.”
She continued, “So my first trip, as Vice President of the United States, was to go in terms of a foreign trip to Guatemala to be on the ground there to address and to be informed of the root causes. Why are the people of Guatemala leaving?”
Calderón asked the vice president if she has a date for when she will go to the border.
“I will keep you posted,” Harris said.
Watch the video below:
Harris’ trip to Guatemala was plagued by questions of when she would go to the border.
During an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt, she was asked if she planned to make such a trip. She responded, “I – at some point – you know – we are going to the border. We’ve been to the border. So this whole – this whole – this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”
Holt pushed back and said, “You haven’t been to the border.”
“I haven’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t – I don’t understand the point that you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border,” she said.
Harris went to the border while she was a senator but has not gone as vice president. Nor has she made a trip to Europe as vice president.
She also told reporters, “I’ve been to the border before. I’ll go again.”
CNN reports that “Harris and her staff have made it clear that they want to focus narrowly on diplomatic efforts in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where they believe they are more likely to achieve tangible results in addressing the root causes of migration, like economic despair.”
However, her responses to questions about when she would go to the border reportedly left White House officials “perplexed” and nervous that it would overshadow her trip.
