US politics latest: Harris holds 'frank and constructive' talks with Netanyahu and says there must be a ceasefire

US vice president Kamala Harris has said she raised serious concerns with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the scale of human suffering in Gaza.

"I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there," she said. "I will not be silent," she added following talks at the White House.

Ms Harris said "we cannot look away" from what was happening in the war-torn Palestinian territory as she called for a ceasefire deal to free hostages still being held by Hamas.

Ms Harris also said: "Israel has a right to defend itself. And how it does so matters."

The talks have been closely watched by commentators for signs of how the expected Democratic presidential nominee might shift American policy about Israel if she becomes president.

Her remarks to reporters after the talks were sharp and serious in tone, reflecting what could be a shift from President Joe Biden in how she deals with Mr Netanyahu.

Family members of American hostages being held captive in Gaza held "productive and honest" talks with Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu today.

Gathered outside the White House, relatives said they are more optimistic about a deal to release their loved ones than they have been in months.

"We got absolute commitment from the Biden administration and from Prime Minister Netanyahu that they understand the urgency of this moment," they said.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son Sagui was taken by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October, told the Times of Israel that there was pressure building on Mr Netanyahu.

"I think the prime minister understands that not only are the eyes of the world on Hamas right now, they’re also on him," he said.

"Because so many different sides — both within Israel, but also outside of Israel — are saying the conditions are there."

Kamala Harris and Benjamin Netanyahu have begun talks in Washington.

The Israeli prime minister met with Joe Biden earlier where the president reiterated his calls for Israel and Hamas to quickly agree to a ceasefire deal that would bring hostages home.

Ms Harris's meeting with Mr Netanyahu is seen to be even more important than the one with Mr Biden after the president ended his bid for re-election and endorsed the VP.

She is also expected to press Israel's leader on securing a deal to release the hostages kidnapped during Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel that launched the war.

"I look forward to our conversation. We have a lot to talk about," Ms Harris said in greeting Mr Netanyahu, echoing the president almost word-for-word 

"We do indeed," Mr Netanyahu replied.

About 29 million people watched Joe Biden’s televised Oval Office address last night, according to American data firm Nielsen. 

The TV viewership for the 11-minute speech was slightly higher than the 25.4 million people who tuned in for Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last week.

Mr Biden, who rebuffed weeks of pressure from Democrats to step aside, said: "I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That's the best way to unite our nation."

Israelis will be paying close attention to Kamala Harris' meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu today, says international correspondent John Sparks.

Israel's prime minister met with Joe Biden today, where the president was expected to push Mr Netanyahu to finalise a ceasefire deal in Gaza that would see hostages returned to their families.

White House officials said the deal was "closer now than we've been before" but that "gaps remain" between parties.

Mr Biden brought family members of hostages with him into his meeting with Mr Netanyahu in an attempt to apply pressure on the Israeli leader to get a deal completed.

Mr Netanyahu is meeting with Ms Harris in a separate meeting. 

The vice president chose not to attend the Israeli's address to Congress yesterday, and there is uncertainty about where she stands on policy toward Israel.

"[Israelis] will be looking very carefully at Kamala Harris," says Sparks. 

"What's her position going to be on Israel in the event that she becomes the US president?

"She has been more willing to talk about the scale, the sheer scale of human suffering in Gaza than President Biden has. 

"So there'll be watching that meeting very carefully."

Kamala Harris says she is "ready" to debate former president Donald Trump.

Ms Harris is on her way to being named as the Democratic Party's candidate to face Mr Trump in November's presidential election.

She is in Washington to meet with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu today and, speaking to reporters beforehand, said: "I'm ready, let's go."

"I have agreed to the previously agreed upon 10 September debate," she said after landing at Joint Base Andrews. 

"He agreed to that previously. I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on the debate stage."

The upcoming US election could be among the closest fought in generations.

The latest New York Times/Siena College poll shows that, among likely voters, Donald Trump leads Kamala Harris 48%-47% in a head-to-head match.

This is a marked improvement for the Democrats compared to the Times/Siena poll in early July that saw Joe Biden behind by six percentage points.

That came in the aftermath of the poor debate performance which would eventually drive him from the presidential race.

Mr Trump leads Ms Harris 48%-46% among registered voters. He had led among registered voters by nine percentage points over Mr Biden in the post-debate poll.

Voters are seemingly becoming more tuned into the presidential race. Just before the June debate, only 48% of voters said they were paying attention to the campaigns. That figure now stands at 64%.

The poll of 1,142 registered voters was conducted following Joe Biden's decision to not seek re-election. It has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

If you haven't already heard the phrase 'border tsar' levied against Kamala Harris, the chances are you will do soon.

The moniker is quickly becoming the favourite attack line from Republicans trying to tarnish Ms Harris's reputation on immigration.

Searches for the term have spiked this year, as per Google Trends data, while Donald Trump's campaign chief has acknowledged it's the party's best line of attack against Ms Harris.

Republicans have adopted it more and more in recent weeks.

"Kamala had one job," Nikki Haley told the crowd at the party's National Convention in Milwaukee this month. 

"One job. And that was to fix the border. Now imagine her in charge of the entire country."

This week, Mr Trump's running mate JD Vance said: "The border crisis is a Kamala Harris crisis."

And speaking last night in North Carolina, Mr Trump himself said: "Under border tsar Harris, millions of aliens are pouring into the country."

The label is starting to stick to Ms Harris like glue, but where does the term come from, and is it fair?

Biden's thankless task

The term has its roots back in March 2021, when Joe Biden announced he would be giving Ms Harris the task of coordinating diplomatic relationships to address the "root causes" of migration into the US.

It appeared to be a thankless task.

The assignment was a long-term one. Nobody in the White House was expecting the vice president to solve border surges quickly.

At best, any benefits from addressing these root causes would take time to appear. At worst, Ms Harris would become the face of the border crisis, one of the biggest political vulnerabilities of the Biden administration. 

Is Harris in charge?

From the moment Ms Harris was given her new task, she was described as the person "in charge of the migration crisis" by the media.

But this isn't true.

That job belongs to - and always has belonged to - the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and the secretary of health and human services, Xavier Becerra.

Ms Harris was never put in charge of the border or immigration policy, nor was she involved in overseeing law-enforcement efforts responding to the crisis.

The White House had to field frequent questions on what Ms Harris's role exactly defined but that sometimes proved tricky.

At one point, senior officials said Ms Harris would "oversee a whole-of-government approach" to dealing with migration.

Harris's missteps

At the same time, it didn't help that Ms Harris made some gaffes that would come back to bite her.

She was criticised by immigrant rights activists for a speech in June 2021 in which she urged "folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come. Do not come".

She was also repeatedly criticised for not visiting the US-Mexico border and for a confusing interview with NBC's Lester Holt in which she dismissed questions about it.

A record that speaks for itself

The irony here - and the one that Ms Harris'd campaign team will be desperately trying to push - is that her record on immigration throughout her career has been widely praised.

Her first ever bill as a senator was to give immigrants detained while trying to enter the country access to lawyers. That came shortly after Mr Trump had enacted a travel ban on citizens from Muslim-majority countries.

She also publicly supported the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects undocumented youth brought to the United States as children from deportation.

As a prosecutor, she opposed federal legislation that would have criminalised providing legal assistance to unauthorised immigrants.

As vice president her task has been tough, but June 2024 saw the lowest number of illegal border crossings into America since January 2021.

Will anything change?

Probably not. 

As shown by Mr Trump's rally in North Carolina last night, the term isn't going anytime soon.

Immigration is a top concern for US voters, and it might serve Ms Harris well to make a clear pitch on how she will deal with the issue if she becomes president.

 There are still "gaps that remain" in talks over a ceasefire-hostage release proposal between Israel and Hamas, according to the White House.

Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu have been in talks today where key elements, including the fate of the hostages, are being discussed.

"There are gaps that remain," said White House spokesperson John Kirby.

"We believe that they are of a nature that can be closed, and we can achieve a deal. 

"But it will require, as it always does, some leadership, some compromise, and some effort to get there."

Mr Kirby also repeated a claim made by Mr Netanyahu during his address to Congress yesterday that Iran has been "funding and encouraging" protest activity in the US.

During his speech, Mr Netanyahu labelled protesters as "Iran's useful idiots".

Israelis didn't hear anything in Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress that they wanted to hear, says a former senior policy adviser to the state department.

Mr Netanyahu spoke for more than an hour in Washington as he seeks to drum up support for the ongoing war in Gaza.

The visit is seen as a political risk for the US and the protests both inside and outside the Capitol yesterday testified to that.

Speaking to Sky News today, Laura Blumenfeld said Mr Netanyahu's speech didn't go down well in his home country.

"There's a real difference between his soaring rhetoric yesterday and the grim stats and the reality back home in Israel," said Ms Blumnefeld, who was formerly a senior policy adviser for Israel-Palestine negotiations.

"Israelis were disappointed by this speech. They say it was a speech for an American audience because they didn't hear the one thing they wanted to hear, which is him accepting responsibility for the 7 October attacks."