Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the New York Times annual DealBook Summit November 29, 2023 in New York.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
vice-president Kamala Harris refused to speak on two burning issues on Wednesday – Tic Tac regulation and promotion by Elon Musk of an anti-Semitic conspiracy – despite the fact that the White House has taken strong positions on both issues.
“You don’t have a specific view on TikTok itself?” CNBC Squawk Box host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Harris during The New York Times Annual DealBook summit.
“I’m not commenting,” Harris responded.
The vice president also dodged questions about Musk, the megabillionaire at the head of You’re hereSpaceX and X, the social media site on which he recently reinforced his anti-Semitic allegations.
“We’re going to have Elon Musk later today,” Ross Sorkin said. “The White House condemned what he said. What do you think of what he said?”
“I have nothing to say,” Harris said.
Ross Sorkin continued: “And what do you think of his trip (to Israel)?”
“I have nothing to say about that,” she repeated. “But I will say this: I’m not here to talk about people. I’m here to talk about issues.”
Harris’ silence comes as her re-election campaign with the president Joe Biden accelerates. The Biden campaign has said Harris will play a “key” role in the 2024 effort.
The vice president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his interview with DealBook.
The vice president’s quiet escape Wednesday stood in stark contrast to the White House’s voice over TikTok and the Musk controversy.
The White House supported a Invoice in Congress that would give the president the power to ban TikTok on national security grounds concerns.
The Chinese government can legally require companies in that country to hand over their internal data.
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company Byte Dance, counts millions of American citizens as customers.
TikTok has been criticized by U.S. government regulators, who say it lacks transparency and prevents the United States from knowing who has access to user data and what information reaches users.
Earlier this month, Musk responded to an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on X, formerly Twitter, which claimed that Jewish communities pushed “dialectical hatred against white people.”
Musk responded in a November 15 message: “You told the real truth. »
Musk apologized for the tweet during his interview with DealBook on Wednesday, saying it was perhaps the “stupidest” message he has posted on the platform. He also said he was “not anti-Semitic.”
At the time of the post’s publication, however, the White House struck down Musk for appearing to support anti-Semitism on social media.
“We condemn in the strongest terms this abhorrent promotion of anti-Semitic and racist hatred, which goes against our fundamental values as Americans,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates.
But so does the Biden administration recognized that You’re here and SpaceX technology is important to US national security.
The Pentagon has order contracts with Musk’s companies to use his technology in combat, including in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
