OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A Democratic state lawmaker interrupted Kamala Harris’s speech at a holiday party this week, which prompted a frustrated response from the vice president.
Harris was speaking at a Christmas party Monday evening when Delaware state Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton held up a sign that read “cease-fire” about the Hamas-Israel war and began shouting at the veep.
“Madam Vice President, I am a rep from Delaware. Did you know in Bethlehem they are not celebrating Christmas? Did you know in Bethlehem, baby Jesus is under rubble? Why won’t you call for a cease-fire?” Wilson-Anton shouted, according to Fox News.
Harris cut her off, saying, “I appreciate you wanting to be heard, but right now I’m speaking.”
Wilson-Anton, 30, is the first practicing Muslim to be elected to the Delaware General Assembly.
A Democrat state representative from Delaware interrupted Kamala Harris's holiday party tonight screaming about a ceasefire. Kamala responds with, "Right now, I am speaking." pic.twitter.com/O8uockwr0A
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 12, 2023
“Call for a cease-fire now,” the Delaware delegate can be heard shouting as she was being escorted out of the event.
Most lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress do not want a cease-fire in the conflict, which was started after hundreds of Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on Israeli communities, killing nearly 1,400 people, including dozens of Americans, in early October.
President Joe Biden wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in November that “a cease-fire is not peace.”
“As long as Hamas clings to its ideology of destruction, a cease-fire is not peace. To Hamas’ members, every cease-fire is time they exploit to rebuild their stockpile of rockets, reposition fighters and restart the killing by attacking innocents again,” the column attributed to the president said.
But where there has been disagreement between Biden and the majority of Congress, it has come from the far-left elements of the Democratic Party, such as “Squad” members like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, among others.
“House progressive Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. – who was censured for chanting the pro-Palestinian slogan ‘from the river to the sea’ – also voiced similar calls for a cease-fire,” Fox News noted.
Harris, meanwhile, continues to be a negative influence on Biden as the two head into reelection, most likely against former President Donald Trump if his polling numbers hold.
According to an NBC News survey in late November, Biden was losing to Trump for the first time in his presidency, while Harris’s approval rating sank below 30 percent.
Just 40 percent of respondents approve of the job Biden is doing, while just 29 percent approve of Harris, making her the least-popular vice president in the modern era.
“Additionally, when asked whether they would vote for a Republican candidate or Biden in the 2024 election, the current president lags at 37% to 48%,” Just the News reported, citing the survey. “When specifically asked about whether they would vote for Trump or Biden, 46% of voters said Trump while 44% said Biden, per the poll.”
NBC political correspondent Steve Kornacki cited the shocking survey during a segment on Sunday with the network.
He noted that while Biden has long held a “likeability” advantage over Trump, the latest survey also shows the two men tied in that category.
“The gap is gone. Thirty-six percent positive on both and actually Biden, one point more negative than Trump. That’s been a significant advantage for Biden. Our poll says that advantage, at least for now, may be gone,” Kornacki noted.
In addition, the political correspondent said that, according to the survey, just 40 percent of respondents gave Biden positive job approval, which is also the lowest number in the span of the current president’s term.
And just 30 percent of self-identifying Independents give Biden positive job approval ratings.
“If you take a look here by party, I think it’s significant for two reasons: one, Independents, obviously, more than two to one disapprove. You don’t want to be there as an incumbent president. But I think equally significant, no surprise, 7% of Republicans approve of Joe Biden, job performance, but three times as many Democrats, 21%, that’s more than one in five, say they disapprove. You need much more unified support in your own party if you’re going to have a successful reelection campaign,” Kornacki said.
