Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Max Vice President KAMALA HARRIS was traveling to Illinois to speak on maternal health when the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Upon landing, she canceled a planned tour and watched President JOE BIDEN ’s speech on the ruling from a classroom alongside aides and members of Congress. Those aides quickly reworked her own speech to reflect the new world Harris was about to address. “Millions of women in America will go to bed tonight without access to the health care and reproductive care they had this morning. Without access to the same reproductive health care that their mothers and grandmothers had for 50 years,” she said, describing the ruling as a “health care crisis.” The comments were an early culmination of a moment Harris had been preparing for since POLITICO last month published a draft decision. Since that publication, the VP has held brainstorming meetings nearly every week with health officials, constitutional law scholars, technology experts and faith leaders about how best to protect reproductive rights. She has met with doctors and nurses on the frontlines, and filmed a video her office released earlier this month in which she warned: "The rights of all Americans are at risk. This is the time to fight for women and our country with everything we have.” On Thursday, Harris met with seven state attorney generals to discuss options to protect the right to an abortion. A Harris aide called the meeting “opportune” and that Harris would use them as a model for other states. Her turn as a leading White House voice on the issue comes as Biden himself continues to find his footing. The president denounced Friday’s ruling and pledged to find ways he could help protect women seeking care. But he has struggled to even utter the word “abortion” and conceded that any remedy would have to come through an act of Congress. Harris has no legislative rabbit up her sleeve. But abortion rights advocates and Democratic strategists say they are eager to see the White House “let her loose" on the issue — hopeful she can further illuminate the stakes and rally female voters. “It would be a huge mistake for the White House to not allow her to really lead on this,” said ALENCIA JOHNSON , a Democratic strategist who has worked for Planned Parenthood and the Biden campaign. “Because at this point, there's no compromise. We literally have lost everything. There's nothing else to lose. And so this White House can no longer be timid about this.” The VP’s team believe she’s well positioned for an elevated role. It’s not just that she’s talked to as many experts and abortion rights advocates as possible since the draft court decision was published but that she has experience on a debate dating back to her days as California’s attorney general. In a recent meeting with legal experts, Harris zeroed in on how period tracking apps could make their users “vulnerable to prosecutors in states that have anti-abortion legislation,” one of the attendees said. “What was really clear is that she really wanted to find a way to convey what these issues mean outside of the confines of kind of lofty towers,” said University of California, Irvine law professor MICHELE GOODWIN , who was in the meeting. “What does this mean for the rule of law? What does this mean for our democracy? How do we connect these issues to voting rights?” Harris had been poised to hit the road as the midterms neared and aides say the court ruling makes that all the more vital. A senior Harris aide said the vice president wants to “ring the alarm bell especially the implications about abortions but also beyond that,” specifically privacy concerns she and Biden have warned could also be at risk. But there are challenges. Having been handed several intractable issues already, the VP is now positioning herself as the face of another one. Democrats have few avenues to advance abortion rights in the near term and face an election climate that remains unfavorable to them. Harris’ supporters have been frustrated that she’s been given issues in the past only to be hamstrung by a perceived slowness of the White House to move aggressively on them. That’s been particularly true of voting rights where Biden resisted supporting a carve out for the filibuster, before eventually embracing it. Should she continue taking ownership of the abortion rights portfolio, the hope is that it can be coupled with more aggressive action. The White House, said Johnson, must “not only let her loose with speeches that will make us feel better, but also push for executive actions and work with the Department of Justice and HHS to figure out how to protect reproductive freedom.”
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