Alaska’s Sen. Dan Sullivan wrote on X/Twitter about America’s loyalty and promises to Israel, and criticized the vice president of the United States, who is the presiding member of the Senate, for skipping out on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s historic speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.
“He laid out the stakes,” Sullivan said of Netanyahu. “This is an axis of evil with regard to Iran, an axis of chaos. It’s literally barbarism vs. civilization.”
It’s customary for the vice president to preside during a joint session of Congress, but Vice President Kamala Harris was nowhere to be seen in the Capitol. Neither she nor President Joe Biden greeted Netanyahu as he disembarked his jet on Monday in the United States. Harris, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, is set to meet with Netanyahu privately after President Joe Biden meets with him on Thursday. Former President Donald Trump will meet with the Israeli prime minister on Friday at Mar-a-Lago.
During the Netanyahu speech, pro-Hamas rioters outside the building were pepper sprayed by U.S. Capitol Police as they became violent, burned the American flag, and shouted invectives against Israel and Netanyahu.
“It is disheartening to see Vice President Harris and senior Democrats boycotting an address from Israel’s prime minister at a moment of unprecedented vulnerability for America’s closest ally in the Middle East. We should be reinforcing, not undermining, the decades-long, bipartisan support for this critical democracy, recognizing Israel’s right to exist in peace and security,” Sullivan said after the speech ended.
Here’s Sen. Sullivan’t immediate reaction to the speech:
Sen. Lisa Murkowski made no mention of the speech and Rep. Mary Peltola was possibly absent, not spotted in the chambers.