Critics of Donald Trump often point to his character flaws. "He's unstable," his rival, incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris, asserted in an interview with Fox News.
However, viewers of the truncated interview – cut short after 26 minutes, likely because her aides recognized the failure in real-time – couldn't help but be alarmed by the weakness of character and lack of knowledge Harris herself projected.
For Harris, this was a unique opportunity to address an audience unfamiliar with her and her positions, and to respond to numerous questions about her on the conservative channel.
Instead of rising to the challenge and criticizing her opponent – as a US presidential candidate should do 20 days before the election – Harris spoke hesitantly, repeating the same phrases like a mantra, appearing unfocused and failing to address many of the points raised by interviewer Bret Baier. Incidentally, unlike her, he demonstrated mastery of details and thorough preparation for the conversation.
Beyond everything else, Harris exuded weakness, fatigue, or someone who has run out of energy. This comes at a time when, especially on this conservative channel, she needed to project maximum strength. Even her leaning back on a chair cushion, compared to the interviewer's forward lean, momentarily created the impression that he was much more suited than her to be the commander-in-chief.
Harris spoke in a confused and irrelevant manner even on the topic close to us, namely Iran. In a previous interview, Harris claimed that Iran is the greatest threat to the United States. "Iran has American blood on their hands.. What we need to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power, that is one of my highest priorities."
Baier challenged Harris' assertion, noting that numerous experts, including FBI director Christopher Wray, consider China to be the primary threat to US interests. He's right, of course. Any sane person on the globe knows that America's main rival today – militarily, technologically, politically, economically, and ideologically – is China. Pointing to Iran as the number one danger to the US indicates – how to put it in politically correct language – extreme gaps in knowledge and understanding.
Harris remained silent in response to Baier's challenge. She also struggled to address his follow-up question, which pressed her on the administration's actions seemingly not aligning with her claim that Iran poses the greatest threat to the United States.
After several seconds of awkward silence, Harris recounted Iran's missile attacks against Israel and how "I was there, I was recently in the situation room in the most recent attack, working with the heads of our military, and doing what America must always do to defend and to support Israel in its requirement to defend itself." In other words, she didn't answer the question.
The interviewer sharpened his point and presented data about the billions of dollars that flowed to Iran and its proxies during the Biden-Harris years – dollars that finance Iranian aggression worldwide. The interviewee, in response, blamed Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018. It's doubtful that anyone who wasn't already convinced bought this argument. In any case, they had four years to fix it. Why did you boycott the situation instead of improving it? That's the obvious question.
Thus, Harris's interview on Fox reinforced the existing impression that she doesn't really understand the role in which she and the entire world might find her in just a few months. For us in Israel, it's actually good that Harris thinks Iran is the number one danger to America. However, considering what appears to be a complete lack of understanding of this issue and others, it's highly doubtful whether she will translate her words into actions.
In the unlikely event that she does, and Harris's America – if she wins the election, of course – agrees to take military action against Iran, Israel's task will be easier. In the more likely scenario that things don't develop this way, after Jan. 20, 2025, if the current vice president prevails over the former president, Israel will have to act alone. And, of course, if Trump wins, we'll be in a different ballgame entirely.
