Year in review: Vice President Kamala Harris’ biggest word salads of 2022
Harris occasionally stumbled over words, talked in circles during key events throughout the year.
2022 was another year filled with awkward and meandering quotes and soundbites from the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.
This year, Harris cemented her legacy as being the politician most likely to break out into an indecipherable "word salad" during one of her speeches, press conference appearances, or meetings with world leaders.
In these moments, which seemed to occur and go viral every few weeks throughout the year, Harris could provide long-winded, vague, and cumbersome statements about random subjects.
Vice President Kamala Harris, during a campaign stop back in 2020. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Fox News Digital picked out six of the vice president's most memorable "word salads" of the year.
Harris on community banks: ‘We know community banks are in the community …’
In September, the vice president, along with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and student leaders, spoke at a roundtable discussion at Claflin University in South Carolina. While Harris touted the policies of the Biden administration, particularly its investment in "community banks," she stumbled into a rambling, circular sentence on the subject.
She said, "We invested an additional $12 billion into community banks, because we know community banks are in the community, and understand the needs and desires of that community as well as the talent and capacity of community."
Outkick.com founder Clay Travis slammed Harris with a sarcastic post, tweeting, "Kamala Harris, the greatest orator since Winston Churchill, on community banks. Enjoy."
Vice President Kamala Harris called her husband in a fit of rage after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year. (Reuters/Hannah Beier)
Harris on diplomacy: ‘We will assist Jamaica in COVID recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica …’
During a White House event focusing on the relationship between the U.S. and Jamaica, Harris tripped through a statement describing America’s help with the Caribbean nation’s pandemic relief efforts.
Harris stated, "We also recognize just as it has been in the United States, for Jamaica, one of the issues that has been presented as an issue that is economic in the way of its impact has been the pandemic."
She added another mystifying stanza, saying, "So to that end, we are announcing today also that we will assist Jamaica in COVID recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica that have been essential to, I believe, what is necessary to strengthen not only the issue of public health but also the economy."
Radio host Buck Sexton blasted the word salad on Twitter, comparing it to that of a smug college student who never read the assigned the material. He tweeted, "She reminds one of the student[s] in college who never did the reading, but insisted on talking a lot about it in class anyway, and always thought he/she was brilliantly fooling everyone. But nobody was fooled."
Harris: ‘It’s time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day'
Harris gave a confounding answer in January when asked by NBC's Craig Melvin about the administration's coronavirus mitigation strategy.
"Does the administration say, ‘You know what, this strategy isn’t working. We’re going to change strategies,’" Melvin said. "Is it time?"
Harris responded that "it’s time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day" before quickly pivoting to vaccines.
"Every day it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down. And so right now we know we still have a number of people that, that is in the millions of Americans who have not been vaccinated, and could be vaccinated, and we are urging them to get vaccinated because it will save their life," Harris said.
Politico’s Alex Thompson responded at the time, "Not quite sure what that answer means."
Harris on Roe V. Wade: ‘I do believe that we should have rightly believed, but we certainly believe that certain issues are just settled …’
A perplexing Harris word salad happened during a CBS News interview in July on the topic of abortion. Speaking about the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade with correspondent Robert Costa, the vice president used an overabundance of words to communicate her view that Roe v. Wade should still be intact.
She told Costa, "I think that, to be very honest with you, I do believe that we should have rightly believed, but we certainly believe that certain issues are just settled. Certain issues are just settled."
Doing his best to contribute to the conversation, Costa replied, "Clearly were not," to which Harris gave another somewhat awkward answer. "No, that's right," Harris said, adding, "And that's why I do believe that we are living, sadly, in real unsettled times."
Reacting to the statement on Twitter, NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck asked, "What is with this administration and an aversion to basic speaking skills and grasp of the English language?"
Harris on Chicago shooting: 'We've got to take this stuff seriously, as seriously as you are because you have been forced to take this seriously …'
Another Harris word salad went viral that same month, this time during her speech to Highland Park, Chicago residents in the wake of a horrific Independence Day mass shooting. The shooting claimed the lives of seven people and injured over 30, though Harris’ bumbling efforts to comfort the shellshocked town became a spectacle all their own.
Speaking to the press and the mourning local residents, Harris said, "We've got to take this stuff seriously, as seriously as you are because you have been forced to take this seriously."
She also claimed, "The whole nation should understand and have a level of empathy to understand that this could happen anywhere [to] any people in any community. And we should stand together and speak out about why it's got to stop."
Seeing the word salad on Twitter, National Review contributor Pradheep Shanker declared, "She is amazingly bad at this."
Harris on Russian gas: ‘Our allies have stood firm and unified in a way… to ensure that we are unified’
Harris uttered another affront to proper sentence construction in a March interview on NBC morning show, "TODAY." Only weeks after Russian president Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration had been facing tough questions about whether it would be banning Russian oil imports anytime soon.
"TODAY" host Savannah Guthrie asked Harris, "Is that something the administration would consider in terms of future sanctions, cutting off the oil and gas part of the economy for Russia?" The vice president’s answer was yet another meandering, and underwhelming attempt at a coherent answer.
She began, saying, "As you know, on this issue, for example, we applaud Germany in terms of what it has done as it relates to Nord Stream 2. As it relates to what we need to do domestically as well as what we need to do in terms of this issue generally, we have, as the president said, to reevaluate what we’re doing in terms of strategic oil reserves here in the United States to make sure that it will not have an impact, or we can mitigate the impact on the American consumer."
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The second grouping of words was worse. She added, "Understanding that right now on the issue of energy, our allies have stood firm and unified in a way that many of the pundits didn’t predict would happen, to ensure that we are unified in our approach to this issue."
Catching a clip of this half-baked exchange on social media, Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce tweeted, "Another word salad filled w crutches. Has no one tried to coach her?"
US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the Democratic National Committee Women's Leadership Forum in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022. (Leigh Vogel/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)