Kamala Harris gave the biggest speech of her career while accepting her presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention. To learn more about what Harris' speech says about her foreign policy and policies toward Taiwan, reporter Chris Gorin spoke with Derek Mitchell, a senior advisor at CSIS and former president of the National Democratic Institute.
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00:00So, Kamala Harris's DNC speech has just wrapped up.
00:03What are your initial thoughts?
00:04Well, yeah, she just got off the stage.
00:07I think it's quite motivating.
00:08The whole convention, the four days of it for Democrats like myself, quite rousing,
00:13quite motivating.
00:14I thought her speech was excellent, and it's going to leave Democrats really motivated
00:18to go out there and take it to Trump through November.
00:21Harris did have a quite animated portion of her speech about foreign policy.
00:24What stood out about that section to you?
00:27I was very pleased to hear her put that in at the end, and it was really a full-throated
00:32endorsement of what used to be mainstream bipartisan U.S. foreign policy, which spotlights
00:39alliances, spotlights American engagement.
00:43I thought those statements of strong principle were very important, particularly because
00:47the speech was, for her, an introduction to her.
00:51We know that she's really gotten this nomination in the past four weeks, and most Americans
00:57and most people internationally don't know who she is.
01:00Harris made no mention of Taiwan during her speech and only had a quick line about China,
01:06stronger focus on Ukraine and the Middle East.
01:10Did you find that to be significant?
01:12So I think Ukraine is very easily accessible to the American audience.
01:16People understand that viscerally.
01:18They'll understand Iran viscerally.
01:20I think Taiwan is a little bit more of a, you know, I think people in America understand
01:24Taiwan, but, you know, we have a policy of strategic ambiguity and there's a lot of nuance
01:30around that question.
01:32But I think for Democrats and for Harris, there's not going to be any nuance or any
01:37break from the way Biden has addressed the question.
01:41And I have no question in my mind that a Harris administration will be a continuation, if
01:46not a continuing escalation of our commitment to the defense of Taiwan, to ensure that
01:52China doesn't do something stupid or doesn't even think about testing a new Harris administration.
01:59The one line she did have on China mentioned AI and innovation rather than security issues.
02:05Do you think that shows where her priorities are in terms of the U.S.-China competition?
02:11I think they go together.
02:12I think the AI, AI more and more in technology innovation, the Biden administration makes
02:17a particular point of it.
02:19This is part of the strategic competition of the 21st century.
02:22So we have to stay ahead in that regard in order for us to stay ahead in the broader
02:28security, broader strategic challenges of the century.
02:31And China is clearly the one rival that we have to be most concerned about.
02:36So I think it was very instructive that she mentioned China specifically in that regard.