Jan. 16 (UPI) — Outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris signed the drawer of the vice president’s ceremonial desk at the White House on Thursday, during a ceremony in which she acknowledged that while she may be the face of her office’s accomplishments, their work would was carried out by a whole team of dedicated public servants whom she served with.
In the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Harris signed the drawer of a desk that has been used by each subsequent vice president since Lloyd B. Johnson in the 1960s, though the tradition goes back to the 1940s.
She adds her name to the likes of Joseph Biden, Dick Cheney and Walter Mondale. As the 49th vice president, Harris was the first woman to hold the office.
She signed the desk with her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, in attendance. Once done, those in the room erupted into chants of “MVP.”
In brief remarks before she put sharpie to drawer, she expressed her pride for the team she has worked with for years, acknowledging that while she is the one whom people thank for their work she is “fully aware ” they are thanking all of them.
“I will tell you I’m fully aware that when they are thanking me they are thanking our team for the extraordinarily commitment that you each have and as a team have to lifting up the American people, lifting up their condition, lifting up their hopes and dreams and understanding through it all the nobility of public service,” she said.
“We have each taken on a life and a calling that is about doing work in the service of others and doing it in a way that is fueled, yes, with ambition. Yes, with a sense of almost stubbornness about not hearing no and knowing that we can make a difference.”
But I will tell you everyone here has so much to be proud of, and our work is not done.”
Concerning those whose signatures hers now joins, she said that while they may not have all agreed on policies, they share a “very common experience” of having been vice president, and that she affixes her name to the desk “with great honor and with the knowledge that our work here has mattered.”
“It has meaning,” she said, “it has impacted people we may never meet, people who may never know our name, but who are ever forever grateful for the work that you each and we all together have done.”
According to the White House, the desk was first used by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902, with several presidents also choosing to use it, before being placed in storage from December 1929 until 1945, when President Harry S. Truman chose to use it.
The desk has been signed not only be vice presidents, but some of the presidents who have used it.
The incoming administration of Donald Trump will be inaugurated Monday, when former Sen. JD Vance of Ohio will take over the office of the vice president.
