Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia on Tuesday to commemorate National Voter Registration Day. While there, as Landon reported, she derided Texas and Georgia's election integrity laws as "inhumane." She also took questions and heard comments, including from a young woman who mentioned Israel was committing "ethnic genocide." Harris nodded along throughout her question and then told the young woman "I'm glad you did" bring it up and supported her for speaking "your truth."
WATCH: Kamala Harris nods as student accuses Israel of "ethnic genocide": “your truth cannot be suppressed" pic.twitter.com/FcqCyT7Uo8
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The young woman shared that she's not an American before saying, "I do know that America affects my life every day and it's in the way that a lot of taxpayer money is allocated for funding the military, whether it's back in Saudi Arabia or Palestine. And I bring this up because you brought up how the power of the people and demonstration and organizing is very valuable in America, but I see that over the summer there have been like protests, demonstrations in astronomical numbers, then with Palestine, but then just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it's an ethnic genocide."
She appeared to be referencing the funding of the Iron Dome. Last week the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to do so, by a vote of 420 to 9.
The student went on to connect it back to healthcare. "I bring this up also because of the issue of how Americans are struggling because of lack of healthcare, COVID healthcare, lack of affordable housing, and all this money ends up going to funding Israel and back in Saudi Arabia and whatnot."
She closed by complaining about how she feels there's been "a lack of listening, and I just feel like I need to bring this up, because this is something that affects my life and people I care about's life and this is just something I had to bring up."
Throughout the young woman's comments, Harris nodded along and at one point murmured "mm mhm."
The young woman may very likely continue to have concerns with a lack of listening considering that the vice president did not at all address the substance of what the young woman was saying. More importantly, she did not push back against her claims about Israel.
"I'm glad you did, I'm glad you did," Harris replied, in response. "And again, this is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth, cannot be suppressed. And it must be heard, right? And one of the things that we're fighting for in a democracy, right, a democracy is at its strongest when everyone participates. It is at its weakest when anyone is left out. And that's not only about being physically present, but that your voice is present."
Harris also advocated for a sense of unity, specifying she did not mean uniformity, saying she was getting back to a previous point. "Our goal should be unity, but not uniformity, right? When we talk about coalition building, when I think of coalition building, and bringing everybody together in a unified spirit, it's about yes, everyone, we should bring people together, understand our commonalities."
"But unity should never be at the expense of telling any one person, 'oh for the sake of unity, oh, you be quiet about that thing. You suppress that thing. Let's not deal with that thing.' That's not unity. True unity is that everyone in that room has a voice. Um, and then we see where that ends up in terms of a healthy debate on the issues. Right?"
Harris stress once more how much she appreciated the young woman's comments. "And the point that you are making about policy that relates to Middle East policy, foreign policy, we still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path and nobody's voice should be suppressed on that."
While the Biden-Harris ticket claimed to run on unity, the country is particularly divided at present. A Pew Research Center poll released last week, which Leah and I highlighted, showed that 66 percent of respondents are not confident that President Joe Biden "can bring the country closer together." Thirty four percent are confident, with just 9 percent being "very confident."
A longer clip is available at C-SPAN, with the relevant excerpt beginning at 17:21.