As Kamala Harris swore Bernie Sanders in at the Senate Friday, her chitchat with the Independent senator caught social media’s attention. “Stand right here. Although that is not your nature to just stand where you’re told to stand, but give it a try,” Kamala Harris said before administering the oath. And then the two politicians shook hands and greeted each other.
As the Vice President, it was Kamala Harris’s duty to swear in the new senators as the 119th Congress convened on Friday. The swearing-in event was anticipated to have thrown up some awkward moments as the election was acrimonious and Republican leaders even mispronounced Kamaal Harris’s name during the campaign.
But on the Senate floor, it was business as usual with Kamala Harris back to her job after a long hiatus after the crushing election defeat. She was in her jovial mood, smilingly interacting with the senators. While administering the Pledge of Allegiance, she however fumbled and omitted the ‘flag’ drawing major flak on social media. Republican supporters asked how could she not remember the Pledge of Allegiance which was read every day in school.
Bernie Sanders, the Independent senator from Vermont endorsed Kamala Harris during the campaigning and gave an address at the Democratic National Convention. “We need an economy that works for all of us, not just the greed of the billionaire class. My fellow Americans, while 60 per cent of our people live paycheck to paycheck, the top 1 per cent have never had it so good. These oligarchs tell us we shouldn’t tax the rich; we shouldn’t take on price gouging; we shouldn’t expand medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision; and we shouldn’t increase social security benefits for struggling seniors,” he said.
After Kamala Harris’s defeat, Sanders slammed the Democratic Party for its disastrous campaign. The independent, who caucuses with Democrats, said it “should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”
“First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well,” Sanders continued in his statement. “While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”
