OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
CNN’s Erin Burnett criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign for playing both sides of the conflict in Israel while targeting battleground state voters with conflicting messages.
During the segment on OutFront, Burnett was joined by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski to discuss his investigation into the “fine line that the Harris campaign is trying to walk” as it seeks to appeal to both the Arab vote in Michigan and the Jewish vote in Pennsylvania.
Burnett aired an ad that is currently running in Michigan, where Harris says, “What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.”
During the clips, a CNN chyron read: “HARRIS CAMPAIGN’S MESSAGE ON ISREAL-GAZA DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU LIVE.”
Then Burnett noted, “Well, it’s a very different story for an ad in Pennsylvania targeting Jewish voters.”
In the ad running in Pennsylvania, Harris says, “Let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. Because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7th.”
Burnett then brought in Kaczynski to discuss the “historically different” ads, to which he said:
Yeah, that’s right. And look, this really illustrates the sort of fine line that the Harris campaign is trying to walk here in the closing weeks closing days of this campaign on the issue of Israel. Here you have two entirely different constituencies, and they are getting two entirely different messages there. Oftentimes, these constituencies have very opposing views on this.
If you are a Jewish person in Pennsylvania, you saw that ad that you’re getting. You are getting that ad that talks about how strong, strong she is in Israel. If you’re a Muslim voter in Michigan, you are getting that ad on Facebook that’s talking about talking about how she won’t be silent on the issue of Gaza. Now, what’s really interesting here is that ad that we that we just played, the one that’s going to judge Jewish voters in Pennsylvania.
Kaczynski noted that the ad Pennsylvanians see is from the Democratic National Committee and has been edited to remove comments Harris made in support of Palestinians.
The CNN investigative reporter concluded, “So this is a really delicate issue for her.”
To that point, “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who is of Palestinian descent, has refused to endorse Harris and has urged other Muslims not to back her.
“Don’t underestimate the power you all have,” the representative said at a United Auto Workers union rally on Friday. “More than those ads, those lawn signs, those billboards, you all have more power to turn out people that understand we’ve got to fight back against corporate greed in our country.”
“We’ve got to make sure that the nonpartisan part of the ballot gets filled in,” she said.
A fellow “Squad” member, New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was with her at the rally where she did endorse the vice president.
“This is the place where miracles happen,” she said, “and this is the place that is going to deliver a Kamala Harris presidency, right here in the state of Michigan.”
“I want to be from a place that is proud to get our hands dirty and to knock on a door and to fix our own cars and to make sure we know what it means to be an everyday person,” the representative said.
“I love to be from a place where people don’t forget where they came from,” she said.
