Poll Shows US VP Kamala Harris' Approval Rating in Decline as She Keeps Shtum on Afghan Crisis

Last week, Harris received an intelligence briefing about the situation in Afghanistan but has not been questioned in public since.

A Rasmussen Reports survey released on Thursday shows that 55 percent of Americans believe that US Vice President Kamala Harris is "not qualified" or "not at all qualified" to be US president. On the other hand, forty-nine percent of the respondents view her as "qualified" or "very qualified" to be commander-in-chief. 

The poll, which was conducted between 12 and 15 August, was published as Harris was still keeping shtum on the hasty withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. 

Only on Thursday, several days after the Taliban took control of Kabul, Harris made a televised address to the National Association of Black Journalists' during a virtual convention but did not mention the mayhem unfolding in Afghanistan – she did speak about the coronavirus crisis though.

The US vice president has, however, been tweeting her two cents on Afghanistan. Among other things, she wrote that "ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan is the right decision" and that the US mission now "is to get our people, our allies, and vulnerable Afghans to safety outside of the country.”

According to the New York Post, now that Harris is preparing to embark on an official trip to Singapore and Vietnam, she's likely to face "close questioning" about what the Afghan chaos might mean for Washington's China policy.