Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that if elected, Vice President Kamala Harris will be persuadable on the U.S. support for Israel in the war.
Host Jake Tapper said, “We know the election is going to be very, very close. Michigan has a large Arab-American and Muslim-American population that traditionally votes Democrat. But there’s a lot of concern among Democrats that a lot of those voters are either going to go third party or not going to vote at all in protest of the Biden-Harris support for Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. What do you say to those voters who are thinking about sitting out this election or voting third party, or maybe even voting for Donald Trump because they disapprove of Netanyahu and Biden-Harris is support for Netanyahu.”
Sanders said, “Well, what I say in my own view is, as I’m sure you know, I happen to believe that Hamas is a terrible terrorist organization that attacked Israel on October 7. Israel had a right to respond. But it did not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, killed 42,000, injured 100,000, and destroyed almost all of Gaza. That they don’t have a right to do. I will be leading the effort to make sure that we do not provide more offensive military aid to Israel. But to those people who are saying, well, I can’t say what Harris because she disagrees. Trump on that issue, even on that issue, is worse, he will be closer to Netanyahu.”
He added, “So if we are able to elect Harris, I think we’re going to have an opportunity to move her on that issue. To make it clear, we cannot allow children in Gaza to stop to death. She will be open to that. I doubt Trump will. We can’t even get Republican support in the Senate for humanitarian aid to feed starving children. You really want to vote for Trump, who holds that view? I hope not.”
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