Harris says Biden’s circle irked by March 2024 speech in which she urged Gaza truce

 Former US vice president Kamala Harris reveals that Joe Biden’s aides didn’t like a March 2024 speech she gave in which she called for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, claiming that the then-president’s inner circle felt she was outshining him.

The speech in question had been part of a commemoration of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, when civil rights marchers were attacked by police.

“I gave a strong speech on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Desperate people had been shot when they swarmed a food truck, and I spoke of families reduced to eating leaves or animal feed, women prematurely giving birth with little or no medical care, and children dying from malnutrition and dehydration,” Harris recalls in an excerpt, published in The Atlantic, from her upcoming book, “107 Days.”

“I reiterated my strong support for Israel’s security and called on Hamas to release the hostages and accept the ceasefire agreement then on the table. I also called on Israel for greater access to aid,” she continues.

“It was a speech that had been vetted and approved by the White House and the National Security Council. It went viral, and the West Wing was displeased. I was castigated for, apparently, delivering it too well,” Harris claims.

The speech did indeed make headlines as it appeared to be the first time that the US was calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The line was immediately cheered by those in attendance — so much so that the applause drowned out the part of the line clarifying that she was only referring to a six-week truce that had been under discussion, not something more long-term.

She was still seen by some as taking a slightly harder approach on Israel than Biden — something both of their offices denied at the time.

The speech was used to highlight a broader frustration Harris had — not with Biden, but with the aides around him.

“Their thinking was zero-sum: If she’s shining, he’s dimmed. None of them grasped that if I did well, he did well. That given the concerns about his age, my visible success as his vice president was vital. It would serve as a testament to his judgment in choosing me and reassurance that if something happened, the country was in good hands,” she writes. “My success was important for him. His team didn’t get it.”

Harris also notes in the excerpt that Biden, who was already struggling in the polls due to the perception that he was too old to serve, “started taking on water [in 2024] for his perceived blank check to Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza.”