Kamala Harris repeats same expression four times in speech loop

Kamala Harris has once again been mocked by Republicans and meme-creators for saying the same expression four times in succession.

The vice president, who was speaking on Monday in Sunset, Louisiana, repeated the same phrase, “the significance of the passage of time”, four times in a row.

Ms Harris said she had been talking about “the significance of the passage of time” with Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards during an earlier library visit that day, and again mentioned the phrase for emphasis.

“The governor and I and we were all doing a tour of the library here and talking about the significance of the passage of time. Right? The significance of the passage of time,” Ms Harris said.

“So, when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time in terms of what we need to do to lay these wires, what we need to do to create these jobs,” she told an audience in a speech about expanding broadband coverage.

“And there is such great significance to the passage of time when we think about a day in the life of our children and what that means to the future of our nation,” said Ms Harris, “depending on whether or not they have the resources they need to achieve their God-given talent.”

Although Ms Harris was emphasising the need for internet coverage in small communities and for children, her expression “the significance of the passion of time” was the main takeaway for many on the right, and appeared in many memes attacking the first Black woman vice president.

“Biden really should get her permission to put someone else in charge of border security,” tweeted Republican congressman Austin Scott along with a clip of her speech. “There has been too much passage of time with nothing being done”.

The remarks were an apparent reference to Ms Harris’ work on the southern border with Mexico, which she has been in charge of overseeing since March 2021 after record levels of migration from South America.

She is not, however, in charge of “border security”, as CNN reported in November, but is working with Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to reduce migration flows towards the US. The Democrat has continued to be attacked on the issue, however.

Another Republican and a former congressional aide, Matt Whitlock, compared Ms Harris’s speech to VEEP, the political satire, and tweeted: “Kamala Harris on the ‘significance of the passage of time’ is the most VEEP thing we’ve seen in at least a few weeks.”

Like many on the right, Mr Whitlock has long rubbished Ms Harris’s public speaking skills, and has denied claims that doing so was sexist and racist.

Criticism of Ms Harris stretches as far as back as 2020, when she was described as “aggressive” by former US president Donald Trump after the only vice presidential television debate.

As The New York Times reported, doing so is widely regarded as enforcing the stereotype of the “angry Black woman”, and those kinds of attacks have continued more than a year later.

Nor did former vice president Mike Pence receive such extensive criticism.