(Bloomberg) -- After Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, her office quickly dispatched a memo to national security professionals highlighting the new Democratic nominee’s “strong record” on foreign policy.
The 10-page document, which was obtained by Bloomberg, was emailed Thursday as part of a full court press to cast Harris — who has spent much of her career focused on domestic matters — as a foreign policy heavyweight on a week that she began her campaign against former President Donald Trump.
It describes a leader who “played an integral role in restoring US global leadership around the world” alongside President Joe Biden and underscores her support of an American-led international order, in contrast to Trump’s isolationist leanings.
The memo hyping her record comes as Democrats try to neutralize Republican attacks on their new nominee for president and to play up the foreign policy experience she’s gained alongside Biden, who has dealt with global issues for decades as a senator.
It added that she offered advice in the White House Situation Room on “the toughest decisions — from the US response to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine” to Iran’s missile and drone attack on Israel in April.
The document, sent by Harris’s national security advisor Phil Gordon, pointed out that she’s met more than 150 world leaders including Chinese leader Xi Jinping, has had six meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and conducted important diplomatic trips to Asia and a “historic” one to Africa.
“I’d like to share with you the attached information about Vice President Harris’s strong record on foreign policy and national security,” Gordon wrote to the national security professionals. “I hope this is helpful as you engage with media and other stakeholders who are interested in learning more about the vice president and her important work.”
In particular, the memo highlights that she was “deeply involved” in the Biden administration’s response to the assault on Israel last Oct. 7, in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others.
According to the memo, she took part in more than 20 calls between Biden and Netanyahu. But while the paper highlights her engagement with Israeli leaders, it also says Harris “has been outspoken in calling attention to the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and the loss of innocent life.”
“She has ensured the suffering of the Palestinians and the Palestinian perspective has remained at the forefront of policy making,” according to the memo. “She has pressed Israeli leaders hard to protect civilians and increase humanitarian assistance.”
On Thursday, after her meeting with Netanyahu, Harris followed up on that pledge with comments that reportedly upset the Israeli delegation.
“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating — the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time,” Harris said. “We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.”
When Trump met Netanyahu on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, he called Harris a “radical left person” and criticized her stance on Israel.
“Her remarks were disrespectful, they weren’t very nice pertaining to Israel,” Trump told Netanyahu. “I actually don’t know how a person who’s Jewish can vote for her, but that’s up to them.”
Harris’ office on Friday evening declined to comment.
The memo appeared as Democrats try to burnish Harris’s foreign policy credentials after her career as a prosecutor in California focused on law and order issues.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised her as a “leading voice” on foreign policy who asks “penetrating questions” in White House deliberations.
Also this week, dozens of former senior officials signed a letter arguing she would require no “on-the-job training” because of her experience over the past three-and-a-half years conducting foreign policy from the vice president’s office.
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