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It took almost 5 minutes for Kamala Harris to answer Joy Reid about Biden calling for Putin’s removal

April 2, 2022 | | Print Article

(Video: MSNBC)

It took nearly five minutes, but MSNBC’s Joy Reid finally managed to procure a somewhat real answer from Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday after pressing her about President Joe Biden’s recent suggestion that the administration seeks regime change in Russia.

“Both yourself and the president were in the region recently, and when the president was there, he gave a speech in Warsaw. It was well-received by many, but he also said … that Vladimir Putin should no longer be the leader of Russia. Do you agree?” the far-left MSNBC host initially asked the VP.

But instead of directly answering the question, Harris proceeded to address anything and everything else, including even her recent travel itinerary.

“America’s policy has been and will continue to be focused on the real issue at hand, which is one, the needs of the Ukrainian people, which we will continue to support through humanitarian assistance, through security assistance, but also ensuring there is serious consequence for Vladimir Putin and Russian aggression as it relates to Ukraine,” she began.

“Which is why our policy from the beginning has been about ensuring that there are going to be real costs exacted against Russia in the form of severe sanctions, which are having a real impact and immediate impact, not to mention the longer term impact, which is about saying there is going to be consequence and accountability when you commit the kinds of atrocities that he is committing.”

The VP then inexplicably detailed her recent travel itinerary.

“I’ve been to Poland, I was in Romania, I’ve been Europe I think probably at least three times in the last four months. I was in Munich, Germany, where I gave a speech at the Munich security conference. I was in France before that speaking with heads of state about this issue, among many other issues, but most recently about this issue,” she said.

“And I will tell you, in sitting down with prime ministers and presidents, often the first thing they would say to me is ‘thank you’ to the United States and this administration for bringing us together, for building the coalition, for reinvigorating the relationship between the United States and its NATO allies, reinvigorating the relationship and the importance of the relationship to the EU in terms of an issue like Ukraine, which is ultimately about one of the most important principles that we are fighting for, which is the importance of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she added in one of the longest run-on sentences in the history of the English language.

She continued like this for nearly five minutes, with Reid cutting in a few times to ask further questions.

Eventually, at the end of this particular line of questioning, Reid apparently couldn’t tolerate the “non-answer” answers anymore, because she made one final sly attempt to procure a real answer from the VP.

“So no luck on getting you to weigh in on whether he should remain [in office]?” she said.

At last, after five minutes of rambling, the vice president somewhat answered the question: “Well, no. Listen, let me be very clear, we are not into regime change, and that is not our policy,” she said.

But notice the use of the term “we.” Reid had asked whether she agrees with the president’s recent suggestion.

Still, given her minutes of rambling, the public was mostly satisfied with her late answer, with the consensus being that it signaled that she was essentially distancing herself from the president.

Some believe the White House press secretary is also trying to distance herself from the president, which might explain the just just-reported decision to accept a job at MSNBC after only a little more than a year on the job:

“White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is planning to leave her post from within the Biden administration to join MSNBC allegedly in May. … [T]he papers have not yet been signed, but the offer purportedly would make Psaki the host of a show on Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming platform, while allowing her the opportunity to appear as a voice on various cable shows,” according to Fox News.

Some reports have even emerged that she might replace longtime host Rachel Maddow.

Vivek Saxena
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