This story has been updated with a new subheading.
WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris is following in the footsteps of her US counterpart, Nikki Haley, in criticizing former President Donald Trump’s weak foreign policy in her latest attempt to win over disaffected Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.
Harris’ campaign has released an ad featuring former members of Trump’s national security team criticizing the former president and calling her a “danger to our military and our democracy” and unfit for presidency.
During the presidential debate, Harris told Trump that America’s European allies and NATO were grateful that he was out of office. She addressed Russia’s attack on Ukraine, saying that if Trump was in power, Russian President Vladimir Putin would be “sitting in Kiev with his eyes on Poland and the rest of Europe.”
She then appealed directly to the more than 700,000 Polish Americans living in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
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The foreign policy focus is part of a concerted effort by the Harris campaign to win over voters who voted for Haley, a former U.N. ambassador, who made foreign policy a centerpiece of her campaign in the Republican presidential primary earlier this year.
Trump’s main foreign policy criticism of Harris is that there would be no overseas wars under her presidency because other leaders see her as strong. Trump described the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as “a humiliation that has destroyed America’s credibility and respect around the world.”
“I will end every international crisis that this Administration has created, including the horrific wars with Russia and Ukraine that would never have happened if I were President,” Trump said in his speech at the Republican National Convention in July. “And I will end the wars that were created by the attacks on Israel that would never have happened if I was President.”
Harris hasn’t spoken much about foreign policy during the campaign, outside of her speech at the Democratic National Convention and during presidential debates.
Her campaign website provides further details, including Harris pledging to “strengthen, not abandon, global leadership” and protect American interests from Chinese- and Iran-backed groups the US considers terrorist.
Foreign policy was once seen as Harris’ Achilles heel: She was not on the Foreign Relations Committee during her tenure as a senator, and she has a mixed record on issues like the root causes of migration and dealing with Central American leaders.
She’s had a busy first year abroad as vice president, visiting 21 countries since then and meeting with more than 150 world leaders, according to her office.
Now her campaign and former U.S. government officials, including Republicans who served in the previous administration and Congress, are turning to foreign policy to make their case in her favor and against Trump.
“For many Republicans like me, it’s disturbing to hear someone like Donald Trump repeatedly praise Viktor Orban of Hungary,” Olivia Troy, a former senior Trump administration official, told USA Today.
More than 200 former top officials from George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney endorsed Harris in late August. An overlapping group of more than 100 Republican national security leaders endorsed Harris on Wednesday. Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, have endorsed Harris. Troy, a former homeland security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, spoke at the Democratic National Convention.
While most Americans support continuing aid, a May Pew Research Center survey found that 49% of Republicans believe the U.S. gives too much aid.
Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a group of moderate conservatives and former Republicans, said Harris has been successful in putting Trump in a tight spot on national security and foreign policy, highlighting his support for authoritarian leaders and portraying him as the weaker of the two candidates.
“She’s running as a national security moderate, a position familiar to many Republicans from the ’80s and ’90s,” Wilson told USA Today.
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told USA Today that every modern US president has pledged America to be a world leader and build alliances, but there is one exception, and he said that it shows “how isolated Donald Trump has become from the great tradition of Republican presidents.”
“I think the reason she has garnered so much support from Republicans is because they perceive the vice president as supporting our union and supporting democracy around the world,” said Austin Weatherford, Harris’ director of national engagement for the Republican Party.
Republicans oppose Trump and Harris
John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump and now a critic of the former president, has said he will not vote for Harris.
While much of Haley’s base is made up of staunch Republicans and independents like Troye who have split with Trump, some anti-Trump Republicans are planning to nominate someone from their own party rather than pick Harris.
“I truly believe neither of them are fit to be president,” Bolton said.
Haley’s supporters say they are still deciding what to do about the election.
Munir Lalani, a Texas Republican and one-time Haley supporter, said he was “undecided” whether he would even vote.
Lalani voted for Trump in 2020 — she says the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is too big a hurdle to support him now — but she’s not impressed with Harris’ approach.
“We are confusing everyone. Israel doesn’t know if it can count on us,” Lalani told USA Today.
“The United States cannot bear all the responsibility,” he added.
While some of Bolton’s former colleagues from his time as ambassador to the United Nations in the Bush administration have publicly stated their support for Harris, Bolton told USA Today that “many more of my former colleagues have decided to vote for Trump.”
“They haven’t written a letter about it,” he added.
Pence, the most prominent of Trump’s defectors, has also said he won’t endorse either candidate. The former vice president has said he won’t enter the race. At an August event hosted by conservative radio host Erick Erickson, Pence cited “the increasing abandonment of our allies on the world stage” as the reason he won’t endorse the former vice presidential candidate.
Rep. Harris claims she tries to “see both sides” in Israel-Gaza war
Trump is trying to win back support in a closely fought election by portraying Harris as anti-Israel.
She said at the debate that she hated Israel and that the Hamas attacks would never have happened if she were still president.
“She’s the cause,” he argued, adding that President Joe Biden and Ms Harris “are perceived by other leaders as weak and incompetent.”
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, a Trump ally on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it was a “projection” by Harris to portray Trump as weak on foreign policy.
“Under Donald Trump, we had no global conflicts and fewer people crossing borders. The conflicts and the numbers speak for themselves,” he told USA Today. “Under Biden and Kamala Harris, the world is a powder keg and their failed appeasement policies have put us in the most dangerous position since World War II.”
Lawler also addressed the “disastrous” withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan that led to the deaths of 13 US soldiers in the final days of the war. The agreement that paved the way for the withdrawal was negotiated by the Trump administration and Biden chose to stick to it.
During the Trump-Harris debate, she avoided a question about whether she was to blame for the withdrawal, instead saying she agreed with President Biden’s decision to withdraw.
“Four presidents have said they would do it, and Joe Biden did it,” she said.
She also inaccurately claimed during the debate that there are no US troops stationed in “combat” zones overseas. The US has about 1,000 troops stationed at bases in Syria and another 2,500 in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. Both areas are embroiled in low-level conflict.
Regarding Israel’s war with Hamas, Lawler described the Israeli regime as “extremely weak and unstable.”
Lawler supported Biden’s May decision to withhold shipments of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel over concerns they would be used in populated areas of Gaza, as an example of an “arms embargo” against Israel.
“Kamala Harris has tried to represent both sides on the situation in Gaza,” Lawler said.
Harris has repeatedly said she does not support an arms embargo against Israel, and in her speech at the Democratic National Convention said she sympathized with the Palestinian people and supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas fighters who have killed more than 1,200 Israelis and taken about 250 hostage. More than 40,000 Palestinians have died in the ensuing war, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
For Republicans who support traditional U.S. foreign policy, Harris’ vision for America’s role in the world better represents the views of former Republican President Ronald Reagan than the America First policies they’ve heard from Trump.
“Every time you hear Trump speak or Harris speak on foreign policy and national security issues, if you’re a Reagan Republican you’ll say she’s closer to the truth than Trump,” said former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican who ran against Trump in the GOP primary.
Hutchinson, speaking at the Democratic National Convention, said Harris had “made great strides” on national security and that the administration had been consistent in its approach to Ukraine and Israel. But he said he couldn’t vote for her. He questioned her centrist approach to the economy, which voters have consistently said is the most important issue in the election.
Harris’ campaign said she still has work to do but that her support is growing among undecided voters.
“We believe a significant number of Republicans will support the vice president,” Weatherford said. “We’re going to be talking to those voters every day from now until the election.”
Francesca Chambers and Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy are White House correspondents for USA Today. Follow them on Twitter at @fran_chambers and @SwapnaVenugopal.