NEVER WISE TO LET YOUR OPPONENTS DICTATE TERMS:

After four hours in this city on the US-Mexico border, Vice President Kamala Harris was all smiles as she walked across the tarmac to Air Force Two.

"Let's take a picture!" she excitedly told the press gathered under the plane's wing in the nearly 100-degree heat on Friday. As for additional questions? Those she would not answer, instead walking away amid shouts of "Madam Vice President."

Harris had already accomplished what she came here to achieve: release months of pressure on her to visit the southern border while avoiding igniting any new controversies. And she wasn't about to risk unchecking that box mere steps from her ride home.

At each of her three stops in El Paso, Harris and her team seemed intent on dutifully going through the motions of an official visit to the border while seeking to create as little noise as possible.

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