Harris says U.S. ‘prepared to levy serious and severe costs’ if Russia invades Ukraine

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday defended President Joe Biden’s remarks a day earlier predicting that Russia would invade Ukraine, in which the president also distinguished between a “minor incursion” and a full-blown attack.

In a tense interview on NBC’s “Today” show, co-anchor Savannah Guthrie asked Harris if Biden gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a green light “to take a bite out of Ukraine” during Biden’s Wednesday press conference.

“On the subject of Ukraine, I will tell you that the president has been very clear and we as the United States are very clear,” Harris said. “If Putin takes aggressive action, we are prepared to levy serious and severe costs, period.”

The administration has said its “first approach and priority and preference is that these issues could be resolved diplomatically,” Harris said.

“We have also been clear and continue to be clear that if Russia takes aggressive action, it will be met with severe costs,” she reemphasized.

Asked if there’s any amount of land Russia could take that Biden would allow without repercussions, Harris said, “Our interpretation of any country, in this case Russia and Vladimir Putin, denying or violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine will be interpreted as aggressive action, and it will be met with a cost a severe cost, period.”

After Biden’s mixed messages during the press conference, a senior administration official told reporters in a telephone briefing Wednesday evening that the United States was prepared to impose sweeping sanctions on Russia regardless of the amount of territory seized in a possible invasion of Ukraine.

Guthrie then asked if the threat of severe sanctions by the administration was having no effect on Putin given Biden’s statement predicting the Russian president “will move in, he has to do something.”

“I’m not going to psychoanalyze President Putin of Russia,” Harris responded. “But I will tell you this. It is clear to us that the decision is probably in his hands, and we are prepared to take appropriate action based on whatever he decides to do.”

Speaking about the 2022 midterm elections, Guthrie asked about Biden’s remarks Wednesday casting doubt on whether the elections would be legitimate. Harris responded by suggesting that Biden’s concerns about voter disenfranchisement are not the same as those of former President Donald Trump, who regularly calls the outcome of the 2020 election into question despite widespread evidence that it was fair and accurate.

“Let’s not conflate issues,” Harris said, stressing that the White House is concerned about voters’ access to the ballot box in states that have imposed restrictive voting laws. The Senate, she said, attempted to pass two major voting rights bills Wednesday, but Senate Democrats failed to advance them to a final vote amid unified Republican opposition.