Vice President Kamala Harris addressed anti-Israel hecklers who disrupted her campaign rally in Detroit on Wednesday night, saying their actions threatened to hand the Nov. 5 election to former President Donald Trump.
“Kamala! Kamala! You can’t hide! We will not vote for genocide!” a group of protesters chanted.
“Look, if you want Donald Trump to win, say so. If you don’t, I’ll talk,” the 59-year-old Democratic presidential candidate said, after a series of interruptions, as he stopped and glared at protesters.
Minutes earlier, Ms Harris had waited for the dust to die down, speaking more patiently: “I’m here because I believe in democracy. Your voice matters, but I’m speaking now.”
The persistent heckling is notable because Harris has previously avoided major disruptions at public events from people opposed to U.S. support for Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas terrorists killing some 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023.
Biden, 81, who dropped out of the presidential race on July 21 and endorsed Harris as his successor, has faced months of angry protesters yelling the nickname “Genocide Joe!” Polls in battleground states have shown Arab and Muslim voters are abandoning Biden, possibly helping the 78-year-old Trump.
Michigan in particular is home to a large number of Arab and Muslim voters.
Trump won the presidency in 2016 with an upset victory in Michigan and other battleground states, then lost in 2020 when Democrat Biden won both states.
Harris has said she supports Israel but has also made a point of openly criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, saying shortly after meeting with Netanyahu on July 25 that Israel was killing “too many” civilians in Gaza and “I will not be silent.”
The vice president was not heckled when he spoke to a crowd of about 10,000 people in Philadelphia on Tuesday night alongside his newly announced running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, except for one protester, who stood outside Temple University’s Liacoras Center waving a Palestinian flag.
She and Walz also faced no heckling at a large rally in western Wisconsin early Wednesday morning.
