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Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., slammed Vice President Harris as “naive” on Iran and blasted the Democratic presidential candidate for not being powerful on Hamas.
Cotton, who serves on the Senate Intelligence, Armed Services and Judiciary Committees, stated throughout an look on “Fox News Sunday” that Harris’ coverage towards Israel over the previous 10 months alone is “just an example of how she’s unprepared to be the commander in chief.”
“She immediately took at face value Hamas’ claims about the number of people killed and what they were doing,” Cotton stated. The dying toll in Gaza is reported by the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatant and civilian casualties.
“Israel has to strike on occasion at places like hospitals and schools because Hamas uses them for command and control or to fire mortars and rockets,” Cotton stated. “There are civilian casualties in Gaza, no doubt, but those are solely the responsibility of Hamas, not Israel. Kamala Harris, like Joe Biden, though, have put more pressure on Israel than they put on Hamas from the very beginning.”
The senator additionally condemned how Harris, who as vice chairman presides over the Senate, joined the roughly 128 Democratic members of Congress in skipping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s deal with to each chambers final month. Harris did have a separate closed-door assembly with Netanyahu at her workplace on the White House grounds whereas he was in Washington, D.C.
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Vice President Kamala Harris throughout a marketing campaign rally on the University of Nevada in Las Vegas on Aug. 10, 2024. (Ronda Churchill/AFP by way of Getty Images)
“She refused to preside over the joint session, her only constitutional duty as president of the Senate, she refused to have a meeting in public with him, and she came out and again blamed Israel for the civilian casualties in Gaza, only emboldening Iran and Iranian-backed terrorists,” Cotton stated. “And what did you have two days later, Hezbollah, another Iranian-backed terrorist, shot in rockets to Israel and blew up children playing ball at a playground.
“Kamala Harris is naïve, and he or she’s not ready to be the commander in chief,” he added.
After her private meeting with Netanyahu, Harris did say Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorist factions.
“Is that not robust sufficient for you?” Fox News host Shannon Bream asked Cotton.
Sen. Tom Cotton accuses Kamala Harris of being “naive” on Iran. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“Well, she says it on a regular basis like Joe Biden does, after which she instantly says ‘but.’ And usually, Shannon, when a politician says ‘but,’ what issues is what comes after the ‘but,’ not what got here earlier than it,” Cotton said.
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“And what comes after the ‘but’ with Kamala Harris is all the time implying that Israel is answerable for all of the civilian struggling in Gaza, not Hamas, that Israel is the one being provocative when it is waging a defensive battle after the October 7 atrocity and that Israel is the one that ought to pull in its horns, versus supporting Israel and standing robust in opposition to Iran and Iranian-backed terrorist all through the area,” he said.
Cotton also ripped Harris over her handling of being interrupted by anti-Israel protesters.
Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, during a campaign rally at the Thomas and Mack Center, University of Nevada in Las Vegas on Aug. 10, 2024. (Ronda Churchill/AFP via Getty Images)
“She’s been interrupted twice by pro-Hamas radicals. The first time she accused them of serving to Donald Trump get elected. Not telling them they had been demented for supporting terrorists, not telling them that the United States stands with Israel, the sufferer of the worst slaughter of Jews for the reason that Holocaust, however that they may assist Donald Trump get elected,” Cotton said. “Apparently, although, that was too powerful even for her and her marketing campaign as a result of when she was interrupted subsequent, she actually had a script in entrance of her. She had a bit of paper that she began studying from through which she sympathized with these pro-Hamas radicals.
“She said, ‘I hear you. I hear your voice. We need a cease-fire immediately,’” Cotton recalled. “Rather than saying that we need a cease-fire immediately, she should have been saying, like Joe Biden should have said from the beginning, we need an Israeli victory immediately.”
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The senator applauded how Israel has dealt with the battle, “despite the constraints that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have put on them, despite the fact that they’re operating under a significant arms embargo, which Kamala Harris won’t even say that she would worsen if she becomes elected president.”
Cotton added that former President Trump understood that “we cannot have peaceful stable relations in the Middle East with daylight between the United States and Israel and our Arab partners.”
