Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu met with Biden today

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Washington today. And afterwards, she said that it is time for the war in Gaza to end.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time - we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.

CHANG: Harris said Israel does have the right to defend itself, but she said how it defends itself matters. NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid was there and joins us now. Hi, Asma.

ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.

CHANG: OK, so this meeting, it came after President Biden's meeting with Netanyahu. What did you make of Harris' remarks?

KHALID: Well, really, it was an opportunity to see what amounted to the first foreign policy speech of Harris' presidential campaign. This war and how President Biden has handled it has been a deeply divisive issue for Democrats. And people have been curious to see whether or not Vice President Harris would act any differently if she were to be elected president. Today, we heard her take a firm tone, and she also seemed to speak directly to those who perhaps have disagreed with aspects of the administration's actions.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HARRIS: And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done. So to everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you, and I hear you. Let's get the deal done so we can get a cease-fire to end the war. Let's bring the hostages home, and let's provide much needed relief to the Palestinian people.

KHALID: Harris' comments came a couple of hours after President Biden also met with the Israeli prime minister. And, Ailsa, what's noteworthy to me is that it was the vice president not the president who delivered these on-camera remarks today after the Israeli leader's visit.

CHANG: Oh, that is interesting. What does that signal to you in terms of Harris' position on Israel?

KHALID: You know, in some ways, I would say the substance of what she said is similar to what Biden has said. She reiterated Israel's right to defend itself. She talked about collecting money as a child to plant trees for Israel and expressed her unwavering commitment to the country. There was also this moment where she read out loud, one by one, the names of every single American hostage taken by Hamas and said that she had met with their families multiple times. But where I think she differed with Biden was that she seemed to be a lot more direct than him in the empathy that she explicitly expressed for Palestinian civilians. You know, we've heard flashes of this in the past, but these were among her most extensive remarks to date.

CHANG: Well, you know, Asma, since the war started, we've been hearing concerns on our show from young voters, progressive Democrats, Black and brown voters about President Biden's embrace of Israel, of Netanyahu, and some of them, you know, they even voted uncommitted in the primaries. Some of them talked about sitting the general election out. What have you been hearing from voters like that recently?

KHALID: Well, I've been making a lot of calls in the last few days to speak to a number of people about Harris' position on the war. I should note that these interviews that I conducted were before the vice president's remarks this afternoon. One person I spoke with was Ruwa Romman. She's a Democratic Georgia state legislator, a Palestinian American, and she told me that if she had gone to a mosque, for example, and urged people to vote for Biden, she would never have been invited back because the anger and the hurt is just so deep in the community. But she thinks people are at least open to giving Harris a chance.

Harris has a delicate political balancing act. In this presidential race, she needs to speak to multiple parts of the Democratic Party. You know, she does not want to alienate supporters of Israel who make up a key part of the party. But meanwhile, she's also trying to win back some of the Democratic voters who have felt alienated by how Biden has handled the war.

CHANG: That is NPR White House correspondent Asma Khalid. Thank you so much, Asma.

KHALID: Good to speak with you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.