Kamala Harris appoints her own ‘vice president’: A little boy who admired her VP pin

“Of he wears it then he’s the vice-president,” his classmate said about the pin.

(AFP via Getty Images)

A conversation Vice President Kamala Harris had while visiting a childcare center in Washington DC has been praised as “authentic” following a video of her interaction with a youngster at the facility. Harris was promoting the administration’s child tax credit.

The CSPAN clip was posted on Twitter on 11 June by the video news service The Recount with the caption, “VP Kamala Harris lets a young student wear her American flag pin. Another student makes her laugh: “If he wears it, he’s the vice president.””

In the video, a little boy points to Harris’ American flag badge that sits on her blazer lapel, which is a tradition for American politicians to wear and she asks “Do you like this? It’s the flag. Do you want to wear it?”

(AFP via Getty Images)

“Yeah,” the little boy agrees, and she reaches to remove it, and answers “Why do you wear it?” with “because I’m the Vice-President of the United States and I wear the flag of the United States. Would you like to wear it?”

The little girl next to them declares “if he wears it then he’s the vice-president,” a quip that gets the whole room to laugh.

Social media reacted favorably to the moment, celebrating Ms Harris’ connection to the youngster.

One person wrote, “Kids know a good person. They just know. The previous first lady would have recoiled in terror from every child in that room,” implying they believed she had more warmth than Melania Trump

“You can’t fake being good with little kids. They’ll know.” another person agreed.

Another person remarked that it seemed “authentic” and seemed more natural with the general public than their predecessors.

“Authentic moment, just comes natural for her. It’s just who she is. Something Trump and Pence just don’t have, and can’t even pretend to have it,” one person wrote.

“Humanity...Compassion....at last!,” another person said.

Others felt the previous holder of her post lacked the same rapport.

“Such a pleasant change from the former VP. Can’t picture him doing that.”

“Oh my god. Normal decent humans in office, not pretending to be anything other than who they are, is so dang refreshing.” another said.

Others were glad to see the first woman and person of colour be second-in-command.

One person wrote,“We literally have our first female and POC Vice President. That makes my heart happy.”

However, some felt that the video was merely for the “optics” as “Plug and play optics,” one person wrote.

Kamala Harris has recently come under fire for her performance on her first foreign trip as vice-president. She just arrived back in the US from visiting Mexico and Guatemala.

She gave a speech where she warned people “do not come” from Central and South America and was met with criticism over her general message.

Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said it was “disappointing to see” and then added, “First, seeking asylum at any US border is a 100% legal method of arrival. Second, the US spent decades contributing to the regime cange and destabilization of Latin America. We can’t help set someone’s house on fire and then blame them for fleeing.”

Human rights groups have spoken out about the speech she made while on the trip.

“Kamala Harris, seeking asylum is legal. Turning back asylum seekers is illegal, dangerous, & oftentimes sends them back to their deaths. Seeking asylum is a right under US and international law,” the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project tweeted about the speech.