Vice President Harris on Monday announced her national security adviser is departing and will be replaced by her deputy national security adviser, Phillip Gordon.
Gordon will replace Nancy McEldowney, a former diplomat who was Harris’s national security adviser since she took office in January 2021.
The change comes as Harris has taken on a larger role in international affairs, most recently traveling to Poland and Romania as a show of support for NATO allies amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Gordon has worked in Harris’s office for the past 14 months as her deputy national security adviser. He previously served as White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region during the second term of the Obama administration and as assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs from 2009 to 2013.
Harris’s office praised McEldowney as a “close and trusted advisor to the Vice President and a valued member of this Administration’s national security team.”
The vice president’s foreign affairs portfolio has expanded in recent months beyond the task of addressing root causes of migration in Central America. She has traveled to France for meetings with President Emmanuel Macron, and last month she attended the Munich Security Conference, where she met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Harris traveled earlier this month to Poland and Romania for meetings with leaders of those countries as a show of support for the NATO alliance in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Her visit preceded one from President Biden, who will be in Brussels on Thursday for meetings with European allies before traveling to Poland on Friday.