americanwire
A clearly overwhelmed Vice President Kamala Harris tossed out a joke and then burst into loud nervous laughter while speaking during a press conference early Thursday about the prospect of accepting Ukrainian refugees.
Speaking alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw, she was specifically asked about the prospect of the United States accepting Ukrainian refugees.
“I wanted to ask you about some reporting that my colleague here in Poland noticed. He recently spoke with the mayor of the largest border town, who told him that the refugee system is essentially not setup for this, that it will collapse. It’s an improvised system that can work for maybe two weeks but not indefinitely,” a reporter said.
“And I’m wondering what the United States is going to do more specifically to setup a permanent infrastructure? And relatedly, is the United States willing to make a specific allocation for Ukrainian refugees?”
The reporter then briefly turned to Duda and asked him a question as well: “And for President Duda, I wanted to know if you think and if you asked the United States specifically to accept more refugees?”
Instead of immediately responding as she should have given that the first question had been addressed to her, Harris looked over to Duda, and he in turn looked right back at her in confusion.
This prompted her to say “OK” with a large smile and quip, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.”
Harris then burst into a stunning fit of laughter, prompting Duda to respond to her awkward, bizarre behavior by generously saying, “I’ll go first.”
Her behavior wound up triggering a debate on social media. Some such as former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren speculated that it was just a “nervous laugh” from a clearly overwhelmed vice president in way over her head.
And indeed, if you watch Harris’s face as the reporter was speaking, you’ll notice that she looks like a nervous wreck.
This isn’t the first time she’s burst into laughter at inappropriate times, and neither will it likely be the last.
According to NBC News, Harris was dispatched to Warsaw by President Joe Biden “to mend the diplomatic rift” that’s emerged between the United States and Poland.
“Poland caught the Biden administration off-guard with a proposal — immediately rejected by Washington — to make the U.S. the middleman in supplying Ukraine with Polish-owned MiG planes,” the outlet notes.
“Poland proposed putting the planes under U.S. custody at a U.S. base in Germany for later transfer to Ukraine as the U.S. saw fit. The plan was a nonstarter for the Biden administration, which seeks to avoid becoming a direct or indirect combatant in Putin’s war.”
And since Poland is a NATO ally, the administration’s refusal to go along with the plan wasn’t well met — either by the Polish or by some here in the states:
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