Kamala Harris on Saturday criticized Donald Trump’s cajoling of Russia to attack Nato allies of the US who don’t pay their dues, saying the American people would never accept a president who bowed to a dictator.
The vice-president’s comments, in a wide-ranging interview on MSNBC’s The Weekend, represent some of the strongest criticism to date of Trump’s apparent allegiance to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The Joe Biden White House has previously called the remarks by the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination – made last week at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania – “appalling and unhinged”.
“The idea that the former president of the US would say that he – quote – encourages a brutal dictator to invade our allies, and that the United States of America would simply stand by and watch,” Harris said. “No previous US president, regardless of their party, has bowed down to a Russian dictator before.
“We are seeing an example of something I just believe that the American people would never support, which is a US president, current or former, bowing down with those kinds of words, and apparently an intention of conduct, to a Russian dictator.”
Harris, who was interviewed in Germany, where she is attending the Munich Security Conference, also attacked House Republicans who are stalling the Biden administration’s $95bn foreign military aid package.
The bill includes money for Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion. But it has been disconnected from US border security measures that Republicans insisted they wanted – then voted down.
“We need to do our part [to support Ukraine], and we have been very clear that Congress must act,” she said.
“I think all members of Congress, and all elected leaders, would understand this is a moment where America has the ability to demonstrate through action where we stand on issues like this, which is, do we stand with our friends in the face of extreme brutality or not?”
She said she was confident the $95bn Ukraine and Israel package, which passed the Senate on Monday on a 66-33 vote, would also win bipartisan support in the Republican-controlled House. So far, however, Republican speaker Mike Johnson has refused to allow a vote, and the chamber is in recess.
“One point that gives me some level of optimism is we are clear in the knowledge that there is bipartisan support, both in the Senate, which we’ve seen a demonstration of, and the House,” she said.
“So let’s put this to a vote in the House, and I’m certain that it will pass. We are working to that end, and we’re not giving up.”
Harris was also questioned about Biden’s increasingly tougher approach to Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with the president warning this week against an escalation of the military onslaught in Rafah without a safety plan for up to 1.5 million trapped Palestinian civilians.
“We have been clear that we defend Israel’s right to defend itself. However, how it does so matters,” she said.
“Far too many Palestinians, innocent Palestinian civilians, have been killed. Israel [needs to take] concrete steps to protect innocent Palestinians.”
But she refused to say whether the US would restrict or halt weapons supplies to Israel if Netanyahu ignored Biden’s urging and pressed ahead with operations in Rafah without civilian safety rails.
“We have not made any decision to do that at this point, but I will tell you that I am very concerned that there are as many as 1.5 million people in Rafah who for the most part are people who have been displaced because they fled their homes, thinking they would be in a place of safety,” she said.
“I’m very concerned about where they would go and what they would do.”
