Vice President Kamala Harris has given the same seemingly rehearsed and nearly verbatim response about the Israel-Hamas war three times in 19 days.
The almost word-for-word, roughly 100-word response is the talking point Harris immediately turns to when asked about the war. Harris’s initial variation of the answer came during her August 29 CNN interview with Dana Bash, Harris’s first interview more than five weeks after she became the presumptive nominee.
When asked about potentially withholding arms from Israel if she were elected, Harris told Bash, in part:
But, let’s take a step back. October 7 — 1,200 people were massacred, many young people who were simply attending a music festival. Women were horribly raped. As I said then, I say today: Israel had a right, has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed, and we have got to get a deal done. We were in Doha. We have to get a deal done. This war must end. We must get a deal that is about getting the hostages out…
She returned to the canned response on September 10 during ABC News’s presidential debate when asked how she would achieve a deal to end the war.
“Just last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there’s not a deal in the making. President Biden has not been able to break through the stalemate. How would you do it?” asked ABC News’s Linsey Davis.
Harris responded, in part:
Well, let’s understand how we got here. On October 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, many of them young people who were simply attending a concert. Women were horribly raped. And, so, absolutely, I said then, I say now: Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters because it is also true [that] far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed: Children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end. It must end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal, and we need the hostages out.
On Tuesday, journalist Tonya Mosley, co-host of NPR’s Fresh Air, zoned in on Harris’s rhetoric about how Israel defends itself “matters.”
“If it matters, as you say, how Israel defends itself, where do you see the line between aggression and defense and our power as Israel’s ally to do something?” Mosley asked Harris at an event that the National Association of Black Journalists hosted.
After saying there is “a lot to unpack” in Mosley’s question and calling for a ceasefire and hostage deal without laying out specifics, Harris fell back, nearly word-for-word, to the same response she gave at the debate and to Bash:
Stepping back, October 7 — 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered, actually, and some Americans, by the way. In that number slaughtered: Young people who were attending a concert. Women were horribly raped. And, yes, so, I have said: Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And –
Mosley interjected.
“But, Madam Vice President, I think my ask is the difference between aggression and defense here,” she told Harris.
“It’s important to put it into context, which is what I’m doing, and I’ll get to that,” Harris said before remarkably resuming the answer nearly identical to that at the debate and to Bash:
And, so, how it does so matters, and far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed: Women and children. We have seen with horror the images coming out of Gaza. And we have to take that seriously. And we have to agree that not only must we end this war, but we have to have a goal of a two-state solution…
Harris never directly addressed Mosley’s question of defense versus aggression.
