Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who has stayed largely out of the political limelight since leaving workplace, sharply criticized President Donald Trump – her opponent within the 2024 presidential election – over tariffs, authorities cuts, and the path his administration is taking the nation, throughout remarks on Wednesday in San Francisco.
Her remarks, delivered on the twentieth anniversary celebration for Emerge, a corporation that helps Democratic ladies operating for workplace, got here because the Trump administration celebrates its accomplishments in its first 100 days – a date Harris acknowledged.
Former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a keynote deal with through the Emerge twentieth Anniversary Gala on the Palace Resort on April 30, 2025 in San Francisco, California. Kamala Harris delivered her first public speech since leaving workplace in January. (Picture by Justin Sullivan/Getty Pictures)
Justin Sullivan/Getty Pictures
“Now I do know tonight’s occasion occurs to coincide with 100 days after the inauguration, and I will go away it to others to provide a full accounting of what is occurred up to now,” Harris informed the viewers.
“However I’ll say this, as an alternative of an administration working to advance America’s highest beliefs, we’re witnessing the wholesale abandonment of these beliefs,” she mentioned.
Harris has had few public appearances since departing the White Home and has restricted her political exercise, however on Wednesday evening, she known as out Trump by title.
“Everyone knows President Trump, his administration and their allies are relying on the notion that worry could be contagious. They’re relying on the notion that, if they will make some folks afraid, it would have a chilling impact on others,” Harris mentioned.
“However what they’re overlooking, what they’ve neglected, is that worry is not the one factor that is contagious. Braveness is contagious,” Harris mentioned to raucous cheers.
Harris had introduced up related themes – together with the “braveness is contagious” line – throughout remarks at a ladies of colour leaders summit in early April.
That braveness, Harris added on Wednesday, extends to Individuals protesting towards what she known as “the best man-made financial disaster in fashionable presidential historical past.”
“Individuals throughout the political spectrum who’re declaring that the president’s reckless tariffs damage employees and households by elevating the price of on a regular basis necessities; devastate the retirement accounts that folks spent a lifetime paying into; and paralyze American companies, massive and small forcing them to put off folks, cease hiring, or pause funding selections,” she mentioned.
Trump and the White Home have argued that tariffs will assist Individuals be higher off economically in the long run and can stage the taking part in area between the U.S. and its buying and selling companions.
Later in her remarks, talking extra broadly concerning the White Home’s actions, Harris mentioned she would describe the present second in America as a “high-velocity occasion” to implement an agenda she claimed was “a long time within the making” to shrink and privatize authorities whereas giving tax breaks to the rich.
“It is an agenda, a slender self-serving imaginative and prescient of America, the place they punish fact tellers, favor loyalists, money in on their energy and go away everybody to fend for themselves, all whereas abandoning allies and retreating from the world,” Harris mentioned. “And people, what we’re experiencing proper now could be precisely what they envision for America.”
Individuals ought to be prepared, if the “checks and balances” corresponding to Congress “in the end collapse,” Harris mentioned, to work collectively and lift their voices.
“I’m not right here tonight to supply all of the solutions, however I’m right here to say this, you aren’t alone, and we’re all on this collectively — and straight discuss, issues are in all probability going to worsen earlier than they get higher, however we’re prepared for it. We’re not going to scatter. We’re going to stand collectively, everybody a pacesetter,” Harris mentioned.
On the finish of her remarks, Harris struck a populist observe: “All the time keep in mind this nation is ours. It would not belong to whoever is within the White Home. It belongs to you. It belongs to us. It belongs to We The Individuals.”
The previous Democratic nominee for president has had few public appearances since departing the White Home, and has restricted her political exercise.
Harris’ speech got here as she is about to presumably re-enter politics within the coming months. Harris has been mulling a run in California’s gubernatorial race and can decide by the tip of summer time, two sources aware of her plans informed ABC Information in March.
Some Democrats have additionally floated her as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, though a few of her longtime supporters have informed ABC Information they are torn over that prospect.
Whether or not she runs for both workplace or not, Harris’ public remarks so far have generally included veiled and specific swipes on the Trump administration and the president himself.
Doug Emhoff attends the 56th NAACP Picture Awards at Pasadena Civic Auditorium, Feb. 22, 2025 in Pasadena, Ca.
Robin L Marshall/Getty Pictures
In remarks at a ladies of colour leaders summit in early April, she weighed in on the second Trump administration, saying “there’s a sense of worry that has been taking maintain in our nation” however that “braveness can be contagious.”
And in remarks on the NAACP Picture Awards in February, Harris framed the “chapter” America is in as one which “can be written not just by whoever occupies the oval workplace nor by the wealthiest amongst us. The American story can be written by you. Written by us. By we the folks.”
Harris and her partner, Doug Emhoff, have been the goal of current actions by Trump.
President Donald Trump speaks throughout a cupboard assembly on the White Home, April 30, 2025, in Washington.
Evan Vucci/AP
Trump issued a memo in March that revoked the safety clearances and entry to categorized info of his earlier presidential opponents — Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris — in addition to greater than a dozen former administration officers. On Tuesday, Emhoff mentioned he had been dismissed from the board of trustees of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum because the White Home confirmed it had eliminated board members.
-ABC Information’ Averi Harper, Zohreen Shah, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
