Two protesters who were arrested and released in Washington, D.C. Wednesday are criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris’s bid for the White House.
19-year-old Nathanial Lawrence and 23-year-old Gustave Kerndt spoke to The National Desk (TND) exclusively after they were released from custody Friday. The two were arrested for an array of alleged crimes committed during protests outside Union Station during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress.
TND asked Lawrence for his reaction to the vice president and now-presumptive Democratic nominee condemning him and others for allegedly climbing a Union Station flag pole to remove the American flag and replace it with a Palestinian one.
“I watched her speaking, I watched a couple of videos of it,” Lawrence said. “To me, it doesn’t even feel genuine.”
Lawrence, a self-proclaimed progressive who plans to vote in November, said he views a Harris candidacy as “more of the same,” similar to President Joe Biden’s now-defunct reelection attempt.
“People who are actual progressives challenge the status quo. They go against what everybody else is saying and want to actually make a change,” Lawrence said. “When you sit there on a pedestal and enforce the status quo and accept genocide as an everyday fact of life, then you’re not a progressive — you’re saying you’re a regressive.”
“There is no progressive party in this country anymore,” Lawrence added.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office only filed second-degree attempted theft charges against the 19-year-old, according to court records.
Kerndt, who was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department for allegedly crossing a police line established at Union Station, had similar thoughts when asked about Harris’s candidacy and the condemnation of the protest.
“We all know that Kamala is making a play for the presidency, and she wants to gain support as a prosecutor going up against Trump,” Kerndt said. “It seems like a political play and it seems emotionless.”
Identifying as a registered Independent who tends to vote for Democratic candidates, Kerndt said he is not surprised to see Harris echoing Biden’s talking points regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“It’s not surprising, we talked about this a lot when we were in the holding cell,” Kerndt said. “[It seems like an attempt] to win over swing voters that want their safety and are afraid of radical movements that are not attached to every single individual.”
Kerndt told TND all criminal charges against him were dropped late Thursday evening.
Young voter Democratic hype or actuality?
The Civic Health and Institutions Project, a collaborative effort among researchers from Harvard, Northeastern, the University of Rochester and Rutgers, has been conducting a more than two-year study across all 50 states to analyze voting trends among the nation’s younger voters.
According to their May 2024 publication, there was a significant decrease in support for Biden among young Democratic voters due to the administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“The first sizable drop of approval for Biden among young Democrats [was] in the period following the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent response,” the report said.
The report continued by explaining the historically imbalanced voter registration among younger voters favoring the Democratic Party had experienced a substantial shift.
“The percentage of the cohort that identified as Republican in June 2022 was 20%; this had jumped by 32% as of May 2024,” the report said. “The percentage that identified as Democratic also shifted downwards, though by somewhat less, from 45% to 39%.”
Meanwhile, Lawrence and Kerndt were not the only two from Wednesday’s protests who continued to criticize the Biden-Harris response to the Israel-Hamas war.
“Whatever new face of imperialism they are trying to bring forth, we know that the United States government sponsors terrorists,” Claudia de la Cruz, a member of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, said.
Her remarks were met with deafening cheers from thousands of protesters before marches began around the U.S. Capitol.
“We know that U.S. Congress, that Biden, that Blinken, Kamala Harris – ‘cause we’re not gonna give her a pass ‘cause she’s Black and she’s a woman – are complicit of terrorism,” Cruz added.
Israel-Hamas war could impact young voters
Protester signs with the phrase “Genocide Joe” remained prominent in Wednesday’s protests despite the president bowing out of his reelection bid.
The slogan against the 81-year-old American president also appeared on signs at college campuses nationwide during the violent protests that broke out in the final weeks of the spring semester.
Following social media posts and news reports filled with images of burning flags and an effigy of Netanyahu in the nation’s capital, Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah questioned Harris’s strategy for denouncing protesters.
“You can’t run Beyonce-fied #BlackGirlMagic ‘Freedom message,’” Attiah said on X. “Then be sending police and national guard to beat up and arrest students, grandmas, Jewish people, Muslims, and academics – who just want Palestinians to be able to live.”
“Point is Dems need to thread a careful line on protests, especially as campaigning heats up and campuses open,” Attiah added.
To Lawrence, the way Democrats are currently managing the nation’s involvement in the Israel-Hamas war is not challenging what he calls the status quo. The 19-year-old said he did respect an unexpected figure he believes challenges norms: former president Donald Trump.
“I can respect that [Trump] wanted to affect the status quo, you know, shake the system at its roots,” Lawrence said. “It’s the only thing I agree with Trump on.”