When President Joe Biden bowed out of his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, a wave of enthusiasm for a new face on the presidential ticket spread across the electorate. Boosted by memes and “Brat” tweets that portrayed Harris as a different kind of leader, many expressed hope that she would differ from Biden in her stance on supplying arms and diplomatic support to Israel for its war in Gaza.
When Harris chose progressive Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, who previously bent a listening ear to “Uncommitted” delegates who called for an arms embargo on Israel, cautious optimism grew, but questions remained.
But when Harris sat down for an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Thursday, her first since the start of her campaign, the vice president seemed to shut the door on the possibility of change.
When asked whether Harris would “do anything differently” in her approach to ceasefire talks and withholding weapons shipments to Israel, Harris, with Walz by her side, doubled down on her “commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself.”
“And that’s not gonna change,” she said, after evoking scenes from the October 7 attacks in Israel. Harris added the caveat that how Israel defended itself mattered, saying, “Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.” She then called for the end of the war and that the U.S. has to “get a deal done.”
Hellbound and Down 