Photo: @Isabel_Schnabel on X, 1 July 2024
A top official at the European Central Bank (ECB) has generated international headlines after a recording emerged of her describing U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as “hopeless” and arguing that the presumptive Democratic nominee for the White House “would never win an election.”
German-born economist Isabel Schnabel, who serves on the ECB’s governing board, made the comments, which were caught on hot mic, at a panel event in February. She described Harris as effectively “invisible” when interacting with EU leaders during her three years in office.
“They should have built up another candidate to Kamala Harris from the beginning,” Schnabel said. “She would never win an election, I mean that’s hopeless.”
Schnabel’s remarks were unearthed and reported at the same time as Harris became the presumptive presidential nominee for the U.S. Democratic Party following the shock withdrawal of her boss, President Joe Biden.
Quick to minimise any damage, the ECB issued a press statement on Monday evening describing the quotes as “misleading” and claiming that Schnabel “never comments in public on political events.”
The comments come as European leaders have praised Harris in public. “I wish all the best to Kamala Harris, she’s a woman, a strong woman, I wish her all the best,” Belgium’s Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said.
While European leaders were slow to overtly endorse Harris in their statements praising President Biden for his decision to step aside, the Vice President has previously earned the kudos of the EU establishment for defending America’s ‘ironclad’ commitment to defend Washington’s European allies through Article 5 of NATO which demands the U.S. protect all members of the military alliance if attacked.
But multiple EU officials have gone off-the-record about their less-than-ideal experiences with Vice President Harris, who secured enough delegates to ensure her crowning victory at next month’s Democratic convention on Monday.
Speaking to preferred Brussels insider mouthpiece Politico, EU officials described Harris as having a “split screen persona” during her addresses to the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, unable to speak publicly without the use of a teleprompter.
Another anonymous EU official described how Europe was “overly complacent about the strength of the EU’s relationship with the U.S. during the Biden years.”
“There is an argument that the EU should have made more of an effort to cultivate relations with Harris, given Biden’s age,” described another off-record Eurocrat, “But on the other hand, she didn’t exactly make that easy. It wasn’t easy to find occasions to meet Harris.”
The former prosecutor from California looks like she’s facing an uphill battle for the White House as polls suggest she is trailing Republican nominee Donald Trump.