SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Former Vice President Kamala Harris used a high-profile speech Wednesday to sharply criticize President Donald Trump amid hypothesis about whether or not she’s going to mount one other presidential marketing campaign or choose to run for California governor.
In her most intensive public remarks since leaving workplace in January following her defeat to Trump, Harris mentioned she’s impressed by Individuals preventing Trump’s agenda regardless of threats to their freedom or livelihood.
“As an alternative of an administration working to advance America’s highest beliefs, we’re witnessing the wholesale abandonment of these beliefs,” Harris mentioned a day after Trump reached 100 days in workplace.
Earlier than Wednesday, Harris had barely talked about Trump by identify since she conceded defeat to him in November.
In a 15-minute speech, she spoke to the anxiousness and confusion which have gripped lots of her supporters since Trump took workplace however discouraged despair.
“They’re relying on the notion that if they’ll make some folks afraid, it should have a chilling impact on others. However what they’ve neglected is that concern will not be the one factor that’s contagious,” Harris mentioned. “Braveness is contagious.”
Trump went after Harris in a campaign-style rally Tuesday marking his one hundredth day in workplace. He sarcastically referred to as her a “nice border czar” and a “nice candidate,” and repeated a number of the applause strains he routinely delivered in the course of the marketing campaign.
Till Harris changed Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket final summer season, Trump mentioned, “I knew nothing about her.”
Harris cautioned Individuals in opposition to viewing Trump’s administration as merely chaotic, casting it as an alternative as a “high-velocity occasion,” the end result of in depth work on the appropriate to remake authorities.
“A vessel is getting used for the swift implementation of an agenda that has been many years within the making,” Harris mentioned. “An agenda to slash public schooling. An agenda to shrink authorities after which privatize its providers. All whereas giving tax breaks to the wealthiest amongst us.”
Justin Sullivan through Getty Photos
Harris selected a pleasant viewers for her return to the political enviornment, addressing the twentieth anniversary gala for Emerge America, a corporation that recruits and trains Democratic girls to run for workplace. It grew partially from Harris’ run for San Francisco district legal professional within the early 2000s.
The speech was delivered under luminous chandeliers in a gold-trimmed ballroom within the landmark Palace Resort.
Harris is ramping up her public presence as Democrats nationally seek for a path ahead after November’s election, through which Republicans additionally gained management of Congress. Whereas a slate of high-profile Democrats — from governors to businessmen — search management roles throughout the social gathering, the previous vice chairman retains distinctive affect and would reshape any future race she chooses to enter.
She praised Democrats who’ve been particularly prolific in criticizing Trump, name-dropping lawmakers various of their ideology and elegance: Sens. Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders together with Reps. Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
However she didn’t take a stand in one among her social gathering’s central divides, neither calling for mass mobilization like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker or questioning Democratic positioning on key points like California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“I’m not right here tonight to supply all of the solutions,” Harris mentioned. “However I’m right here to say this: You aren’t alone and we’re all on this collectively.”
However she warned that issues will in all probability worsen earlier than they get higher.
“The one examine, the one steadiness, the one energy that should not fail is the voice of the folks,” she mentioned.
Harris, a former state legal professional normal and U.S. senator from California, has not discouraged hypothesis that she may enter the race to interchange the term-limited Newsom, himself a possible contender for president. And he or she has not dominated out one other run for the White Home.
She didn’t tackle her future Wednesday.
She continues to fundraise, utilizing a joint committee that features Harris for President, the Democratic Nationwide Committee and state Democratic events. The committee, the Harris Victory Fund, reported having about $4.5 million readily available on the finish of March, in accordance with federal information.
In latest fundraising emails, Harris has been blunt concerning the want for Democrats to unify forward of the 2026 midterm elections.
Democrats have to “manage and cease Trump’s agenda whereas electing Democrats in all places,” she wrote in latest emails. “There has by no means been a extra vital time for a robust Democratic Occasion — one that’s prepared to face as much as Donald Trump, Elon Musk and what they’re doing to this nation.”
The occasion marks a homecoming of kinds. Harris lives in Los Angeles however she is from the San Francisco Bay Space, the place her political profession is rooted. For her first main speech for the reason that election, she selected acquainted terrain and a pleasant, in some methods familial, crowd.
Lisa Gotbhi, a well being care government in San Francisco, mentioned Harris’ loss final yr was a “shock,” however “she’s a voice we’d like and a pacesetter we’d like. Let’s get again within the battle.”