Rob Astorino Wants Everyone To Remember Who's Missing From This Picture

Kamala Harris spent Thursday campaigning as the presumptive Democratic nominee for President. Meanwhile, in Washington, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in front of Congress without Harris sitting in her customary spot on the dais behind him as America’s Vice-President. Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who can be heard on WOR every Saturday at 4pm, says Harris should have canceled the appearance and been in Washington for the address. Speaking on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program, Astorino says the optics of the V.P. not being present for a speech by the leader of one of America’s foremost allies is bad, at best.

“It was so awkward, the last place in the world she wanted to be,” Astorino opined for Berman and Riedel. “In her head, she was thinking, ‘Oh my God, if I shake this guy’s hand, those people that were burning the flag won’t vote for [me].’ That’s exactly what she was thinking of- that moment, how it was going to hurt her politically, instead of, ‘I’m the Vice-President of the United States, I’m the president of the Senate. I should have been sitting behind him as he spoke because, first of all I’m an American, second of all, I’m the Vice-President and it’s my job, and third of all, who cares about the politics pf the moment, because Israel is our ally’. She thought of none of those three.”

Optics become a bigger problem, as Astorino sees it, because the media are sanitizing the perception of Harris. “There’s nothing to dig on Kamala Harris. The problem, though, is - voila! - they’re white-washing everything about her. They’re taking down stuff form the internet… they’re taking things down about Kamala Harris’ past, because they don’t want it known, But look, the one thing she cannot do is break away from the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris administration, right? She’s part of everything that has happened, so she owns the record. Period. And historically, it’s always very difficult for a vice-President to break free from the President and run on his own, so she’s got the same problem, because she owns that record.”

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