Kamala Harris

“A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle as much as any other distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it. At the same time in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God. 

“My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuels this campaign, the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people, a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up…: to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together… to fill the sky with the light of a billion brilliant stars, the light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service, [and to let] “that work guide us, even in the face of setbacks, toward the extraordinary promise of the United States of America.” 

-Kamala Harris

Notes From a Phony Campaign: Catfight in Philly by Jeffrey St. Clair

 

“When a politician is in opposition, he is an expert on the means to some end, and when he is in office, he is an expert on the obstacles to it.”

– G.K. Chesterton

+ The title of this column comes from Jean-Paul Sartre’s diary of the first eight months of World War II, when he was stationed in Alsace, working as a meteorologist, watching weather balloons and recording barometric pressure, while waiting for something, anything, profound to happen.

+ So Harris pretty effectively rebutted GOP accusations that she’s a communist, Marxist, socialist, pacifist, progressive, environmentalist, civil libertarian, or humanist.

+ With Harris, it sounds like we will get Cheney’s foreign policy, AIPAC’s Middle East policy, Goldman Sachs’ economic policy, and Exxon’s climate policy.

+ Fires are burning down towns and resorts in California, Texas is running out of water, and a hurricane is bearing down on Louisiana once again. Yet, neither candidate advanced a position on climate change last night that went much beyond drill, drill, drill and frack, frack, frack…

+ Harris is fighting climate change by, checks notes, expanding fracking, boosting oil and gas production and building new factories!

+ Can’t we all now agree that the Democrats are objectively worse than the Republicans on climate change? The Republicans don’t believe in climate change and do nothing about it. The Democrats say they believe in climate change and still do nothing about it.

+ Move along, nothing to see here…

+ Harris’s emphasis on home ownership–instead of the cost of housing—appeals to a generation that no longer exists and is just as nostalgic as any backward-looking fantasy being peddled by Trump. Most young people have no interest in getting a 30-year mortgage. They want an affordable place to live while they spend 30 years paying off their student loans before being buried under medical debt in their 60s.

+ Harris put more distance between herself and Biden than Trump did with JD Vance, but all in the wrong direction, such as trimming Biden’s proposed tax on capital gains from 40% to 28%–an indication that FTC Chair Lina Khan should be putting feelers out for a new job.

+ A week after a school shooting in Georgia and a freeway shooting in Kentucky, Harris answered a question on gun control this way: “Both Tim and I own guns.”

+ This was basically the same Trump we saw against Biden, where the polls showed Trump winning 67-33. This debate’s polls show Harris–who was scripted & robotic–winning by something like 66-34–which shows you what merely being coherent, audible & not having moments of drooling aphasia can do for a candidate…

+ It’s evident that Harris could have won this debate just as decisively without the full spectrum of rightwing positions she’s adopted during the campaign, which suggests she will try to implement them if she’s elected.

+ Listening to Kenneth Branaugh’s terrific reading of Heart of Darkness on my morning walk (in a glorious rain today), I was struck by a Conradian phrase (there are so many memorable ones) that serves as a pretty good description of Trump when exposed: “a papier-mache Mephistopheles.”

+ Hot new MAGA conspiracy: Harris’s earrings were actually earbuds transmitting answers from HRC and Michelle Obama.

+ Hot new MAGA conspiracy 2: Harris’s earrings were a trap to get MAGA activists to speculate that Harris’s earrings were earphones.

+ It’s true that ABC’s moderators fact-checked Trump’s statements three times and let Harris spew falsehoods without correction. To compensate, they allowed Trump to blather on for six minutes more than Harris, though given what he had to say, this probably worked against him. In fact, at the next debate, Trump might want to have his mic muted for the entire 90 minutes.

+ On Thursday morning, the Springfield, Ohio City Hall, which had shot down JD Vance’s racist fantasies about Haitians pet-knapping dogs, cats and geese for food, had to be evacuated after getting a bomb threat. Alexander Cockburn often got terribly incensed about meddlesome “fact checkers,” but never called in a bomb threat to The Nation or LA Times, as far as I know…

+ Haiti will never be forgiven for its revolution, and 220 years later, its people are still being starved, immiserated, invaded, occupied, demeaned, and dehumanized…

+ As the anti-immigrant conspiracy theories inflamed by Trump, Vance and Elon Musk spread, many Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, are keeping their children home and reporting vandalism to their homes and property.

+ Aiden Clark’s father urged these MAGA creeps, led by creepoid-in-chief JD Vance, to stop using his son to further their rancid political views.

+ Aidan Simardone: “Eating cats is not part of Haitian voodoo. The real reason voodoo is demonized is because voodoo rituals were used by Haitian slaves to plan the first-ever successful slave rebellion. White supremacist then made the word ‘voodoo’ synonymous with ‘evil.’”

+ Here’s a bigoted blast from Trump “influencer” Laura Loomer, who flew to Philadelphia with the former President and his entourage. Loomer apparently isn’t a fan of Tikka Masala…

+ I bet Usha Vance can’t wait to share a flight with Loomer…

+ Childless Cat Lady Taylor Swift quickly eclipsed a dull debate by Tweeting out her endorsement of Harris to her 280 million followers.

+ Her Tweet should have come with a trigger warning since it set off deeply buried anxieties, especially among Trump incels and women like Megyn Kelly, who, try as she might, still can’t manage to squirm her way back into Trump’s favor…

+ Meanwhile, Jeanine Pirro on Fox’s The Five told Swift she should shut up and sing…

+ Then there was Elon Musk’s depraved stalker Tweet: “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.”

+ In his new coffee table book, Save America, Trump includes ten pages of photos with Kim Jong-un, suggests Canada’s Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro’s secret love child and claims that Mark Zuckerberg will “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he “does anything illegal.”

+ Et tu, Matt?

+ “The GOP will track our menstrual cycles, so we don’t have to.”

+ Sure, Bernie. Dick Cheney believes so firmly in the US’s “democratic foundations” that he helped steal the 2000 election, lied the country into a war and trashed the most basic Constitutional rights for eight years.

+ After the debate, former Attorney General and torture legalizer Alberto Gonzales threw his backing behind Harris, writing in Politico:  “I can’t sit quietly as Donald Trump — perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation — eyes a return to the White House.” Too bad Rumsfeld isn’t alive to rejoin the old gang. Perhaps the Harris campaign can Ouija Board an endorsement from him. Does anyone know which Circle of Hell he’s been assigned to?

+ Of course, Obama’s imprimatur is scarcely an upgrade.

+ Not only did Obama indemnify the post-911 criminals of the Bush administration for lying the US into a war and committing heinous crimes against humanity in the process, he actually extended their crimes by using drones in the extra-judicial assassination of American citizens.

+ Harris won the debate. However, there’s little evidence that winning a debate against Trump means much to the electorate. If you read the transcript of the Biden debate, Trump’s answers were filled with lies and nonsense. They received almost no attention. People know he’s a hybrid of a WWE character and the world’s most obnoxious used car salesman & at least 45% of the country doesn’t care.

+ The one thing Harris could have done was use the debate to condemn the killing of Americans (if she can’t bring herself to condemn the killing of Palestinians) by Israeli forces and announce her support for an arms embargo. This is, of course, the one thing she would never risk doing (and didn’t).

+ 40 years of neoliberalism has demonstrated that the answer to our current political crisis certainly isn’t for activists to continue compromising with the likes of Dick Cheney and Jamie Dimon on genocide, police brutality, austerity or the climate crisis. We know what compromising liberals have given us: Serbian war, don’t ask, don’t tell, welfare destruction, NAFTA, Iraq war, torture, Deepwater Horizon, Wall Street bailouts, Libyan war, assassination by drone, Trump, record oil production in the US, and genocide…

+ Chicago Calling…

Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book is An Orgy of Thieves: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents (with Alexander Cockburn). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net or on Twitter @JeffreyStClair3. 

 

Takeaways from the Presidential Debate

 

PHILADELPHIA, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump met on Tuesday for their first and perhaps only debate, a square-off that could have a significant impact on the Nov. 5 election as polls show a tight race.

Here are takeaways from the debate:

RILING HER RIVAL

Harris made a point to get under Trump's skin, as her campaign had forecast - and it worked.

She urged viewers to attend a Trump rally, where she said Trump would say bizarre things such as windmills cause cancer (something he has, in fact, said) and where, she taunted, attendees would leave out of exhaustion and boredom (something they have, in fact, done.)

Trump, who prides himself on the crowds he draws, was clearly riled.

"My rallies, we have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics," he said. He accused Harris of busing in attendees to her rallies.

Trump then falsely claimed that immigrants in the country illegally were killing and eating people's pets in the city of Springfield, Ohio, an unsubstantiated assertion that has circulated on social media and been amplified by Trump's vice presidential running mate JD Vance.

"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs! The people that came in, they're eating the cats!" Trump said. "They're eating the pets of the people that live there."

City officials in Springfield have said those reports are untrue, which the ABC moderators pointed out after Trump’s comments.

"Talk about extreme," Harris responded, laughing.

PLAYING DEFENSE

Another of Harris’ goals, as a former California prosecutor, was to call Trump out for his past actions, particularly his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

An hour into the debate, her strategy appeared to be paying off. Trump was continually on the defensive.

Asked about the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol, he insisted he “had nothing to do with that, other than they asked me to make a speech." He also maintained, falsely, that he had won the 2020 election.

Harris used Trump's actions as an argument for the country to turn the page, which she would do throughout the evening.

"Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, so let's be clear about that, and clearly he is having a very difficult time processing that, but we cannot afford to have a president of the United States who attempts as he did in the past to upend the will of the voters in a free and fair election,” Harris said.

The vice president dug at Trump a little more, saying world leaders were “laughing” at him and calling him a disgrace – language that Trump has employed himself at rallies in reference to how he says other countries view President Joe Biden.

A few minutes later, Trump erupted, claiming Harris had received “no votes” in claiming the Democratic nomination and suggesting she replaced Biden as part of some sort of coup.

“He hates her,” Trump said of Biden. “He can’t stand her.”

The exchanges may have aided Harris' argument that Trump, as she put it, lacks the “temperament” to be president.

'WEAPONIZED' JUSTICE

Trump and Harris accused each other of conspiring to "weaponize" the Justice Department in a bid to go after their enemies.

Trump said the indictments he faces for conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss and for his mishandling of classified documents - as well as his conviction for forging documents related to hush money payments to a porn star - are all the result of a conspiracy cooked up by Harris and Biden. There is no evidence for that assertion.

Harris shot back by pointing out that Trump has promised to prosecute his enemies if he wins a second term.

"Understand this is someone who has openly said he would terminate, I'm quoting, terminate the Constitution," Harris said.

The heated exchange underlined how Harris and Trump see the stakes of this election as existential. Both claimed their opponent to be a threat to democracy itself.

RACIAL DIVIDE

Deep into the debate, the long-simmering topic of race came up. Trump was asked why he had publicly questioned Harris’ dual heritage as a Black and South Asian woman.

“I don’t care what she is,” he responded. “I read that she was Black. Then I read that she was not Black.”

Asked to respond, Harris accused Trump of using race to divide Americans throughout his career. She cited how he and his father turned away Black renters in the 1970s and how Trump led the public outcry against five young Black and Latino men who were wrongly convicted of assaulting a jogger in New York City's Central Park in 1989.

He also has openly questioned whether President Barack Obama, who was born in the United States, was an American citizen, Harris noted.

"I think it's a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president who has, consistently, over the course of his career, attempted to use race to divide the American people," she said.

"I think the American people want better than that," Harris added. "We don't want a leader who is constantly trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other."

Instead of trying to defend his record, Trump pivoted back to the economy and sought to pin Biden’s economic policies on Harris. “She’s trying to get away from Biden,” he said.

HANDSHAKE

Heading into the debate, there was a question as to how Harris and Trump, who have never met, would greet each other.

Harris settled the issue, definitively. She walked over to Trump at his podium, extended her hand and introduced herself as “Kamala Harris.”

It was an assertive way to approach a man who has spent weeks insulting her with racist and sexist attacks. Trump had no choice but to accept the gesture.

SPARRING ON THE ECONOMY

In the debate’s opening minutes, Trump and Harris went to battle on one of the issues that is top of mind for voters: the economy.

Harris detailed the economic policies she has rolled out in recent weeks, which include a substantial tax credit for small start-ups. Trump focused his comments on tariffs, saying he would protect the American economy from unfair foreign competition.

While both sides got their jabs in, Harris got to speak first on a topic where she trails Trump in terms of voter trust. She appeared to force the former president onto his back foot, and Trump essentially played defense on one of his strongest issues.

"She doesn't have a plan," Trump said, after Harris' opening comments. "It's like Run, Spot, Run."

A SCHISM ON ABORTION

The two candidates also engaged in a fractious debate about abortion, an issue where polls show Harris has the upper hand.

Trump defended the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that ended constitutional protection for abortion and sent the issue back to individual states, arguing, incorrectly, that it was an outcome desired by both Republicans and Democrats. Democrats have long supported a constitutional right to abortion.

“I did a great service in doing it. It took courage to do it,” Trump said.

Trump contended that some states allow babies to be aborted after birth, a point corrected by ABC News moderator, Linsey Davis.

Harris flashed some outrage at Trump’s assertion that abortion becoming a states-rights issue was a popular result, referring to states that have passed restrictive bans.

“This is what people wanted?” Harris asked. “People being denied care in an emergency room because healthcare providers are being afraid of being hauled off to jail?"

Trump was asked whether he would veto a federal abortion ban if one were passed by Congress. He insisted a federal ban would never happen.

WORLDS APART

One of the most heated policy discussions came when Trump and Harris clashed over how they would handle Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The candidates' responses revealed the degree to which their views on America's role in the world fundamentally differ.

Trump refused to say he wanted Ukraine to win the war, even as ABC moderator David Muir pushed him on the point, saying only that he wanted to wrap up the conflict as soon as possible.

Harris shot back, arguing that what Trump really wanted was Ukraine's quick and unconditional capitulation.

"If Donald Trump were president, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now," Harris said.

She also pushed back at Trump's claim she had been sent by Biden to talk to Putin to resolve the conflict. Harris has never met with Putin, but has met several times with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

"I said at the beginning of this debate, you're going to hear a bunch of lies coming from this fellow, and that is another one," Harris said.

 

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Reporting by James Oliphant in Washington and Gram Slattery in Philadelphia; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Wallis

 

Questions for Vice-President Kamala Harris by Jamelle Bouie

 

If the goal of the CNN interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was to relitigate the campaign controversies of the last month — to get the candidates to talk about the major narratives of the election so far — then it was a rousing success.

Harris easily dispatched questions about her identity and gave a strong defense of President Biden’s record. Walz, likewise, made short work of the charge that he had misled the public when he spoke about using one fertility treatment when it was actually another, similar treatment.

But if the goal was to learn something about a prospective President Harris — to gain insight into how she might make decisions, order priorities and approach the job of chief executive — then I think the interview was not a success. Not so much for Harris or the viewing public.

It might be interesting to journalists to know how Harris explains her changing views from 2019, when she ran for the Democratic nomination, to now, when she is the nominee. But it is not at all clear to me that it is interesting to viewers, who may be less concerned with how she deals with the question and more concerned with the actual substance of what she wants to do as president.

A soft-focus question about a photograph, however iconic, seems less valuable than a question about Harris’s view of the presidency now that she’s spent almost four years in the passenger’s seat as vice president.

Speaking for myself, I am less interested in hearing candidates navigate controversies or speak to narratives than I am in hearing them talk, for lack of a better term, about their theory of the office. How does a candidate for president conceptualize the presidency? What would she prioritize in office and how would she handle an endless onslaught of crises and issues that may, or may not, demand her attention? How does she imagine her relationship with Congress and how would she try to achieve her goals in the face of an opposition legislature? How does she imagine her relationship with the public and what value does she place on communication and the bully pulpit? Are there presidents she most admires — and why? Are there presidential accomplishments that stand out and how so? What are the worst mistakes a president can make? Why do you want this job in the first place?

I can think of other questions along these lines, but you get the gist. To know what candidates for president think about the office and their role in it is, I believe, a better guide to what they may do in the White House than almost anything else. The only thing better is prior experience. These kinds of questions may not make for the most scintillating television, but I think they could provide the kind of insights that could actually help Americans decide what they want out of a national leader.

-New York Times

Vice-President Kamala Harris, August 22, 2024 (Speech Excerpts)

 

…Fellow Americans, this election is not only the most important of our lives. It is one of the most important in the life of our nation. In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.

Consider not only the chaos and calamity when he was in office, but also the gravity of what has happened since he lost the last election. Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol, where they assaulted law enforcement officers. When politicians in his own party begged him to call off the mob and send help, he did the opposite. He fanned the flames. And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, he was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans. And separately, he was found liable for committing sexual abuse. And consider what he intends to do if we give him power again.

Consider his explicit intent to set free the violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol: his explicit intent to jail journalists and political opponents. Anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent to deploy our active-duty military against our own citizens. Consider the power he will have— especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails. How he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States. Not to improve your life. Not to strengthen our national security. But to serve the only client he has ever had: Himself. And we know what a second Trump term would look like. It’s all laid out in “Project 2025.” Written by his closest advisors, and its sum total is to pull, our country back into the past.

But America, we are not going back. We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could deny people with pre-existing conditions. We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools. We are not going to let him end programs like Head Start that provide preschool and child care.

America, we are not going back. We are charting a New Way Forward. Forward—to a future with a strong and growing middle class. Because we know a strong middle class has always been critical to America’s success. And building that middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency. This is personal for me. The middle class is where I come from. My mother kept a strict budget. We lived within our means. Yet, we wanted for little. And she expected us to make the most of the opportunities that were available to us. And to be grateful for them. Because opportunity is not available to everyone. That’s why we will create what I call an opportunity economy. An opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed. Whether you live in a rural area, small town, or big city.

As President, I will bring together: Labor and workers, small business owners and entrepreneurs, and American companies. To create jobs. Grow our economy and lower the cost of everyday needs, like health care, housing and groceries.

We will provide access to capital for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders. We will end America’s housing shortage, and protect Social Security and Medicare. Compare that to Donald Trump. He doesn’t actually fight for the middle class. Instead, he fights for himself and his billionaire friends. He will give them another round of tax breaks that will add five trillion dollars to the national debt. All while he intends to enact what, in effect, is a national sales tax—call it, a Trump tax— that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost four thousand dollars a year. Well, instead of a Trump tax hike, we will pass a middle-class tax cut that will benefit more than 100 million Americans.

Friends, I believe America cannot truly be prosperous unless Americans are fully able to make their own decisions about their own lives. Especially on matters of heart and home. But tonight, too many women in America are not able to make those decisions. Let’s be clear about how we got here. Donald Trump hand-picked members of the United States Supreme Court to take away reproductive freedom, and now he brags about it. His words: Quote –“I did it, and I’m proud to have done it.”

Over the past two years, I have traveled across our country. And women have told me their stories. Husbands and fathers have shared theirs. Stories of women miscarrying in a parking lot, getting sepsis, losing the ability to ever have children again… All because doctors are afraid of going to jail for caring for their patients. Couples just trying to grow their family… cut off in the middle of IVF treatments. Children who have survived sexual assault, potentially forced to carry the pregnancy to term. This is what is happening in our country because of Donald Trump.

And understand, he is not done. As a part of his agenda, he and his allies would limit access to birth control, ban medication abortion, and enact a nation-wide abortion ban with or without Congress. And get this, he plans to create a National Anti-Abortion Coordinator to force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions. Simply put. They are out of their minds. And one must ask: Why exactly is it that they don’t trust women? Well We trust women! And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.

In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake. The freedom to live safe from gun violence—in our schools, communities, and places of worship. The freedom to love who you love openly and with pride. The freedom to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis. And the freedom that unlocks all the others: the freedom to vote. With this election, we finally have the opportunity to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. And let me be clear. After decades in law enforcement, I know the importance of safety and security, especially at our border. Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. The Border Patrol endorsed it, but Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign. So he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal. Well, I refuse to play politics with our security!

Here is my pledge to you: As President, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law. I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system. We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border. America, we must also be steadfast in advancing our security and our values abroad. As Vice President, I have confronted threats to our security, negotiated with foreign leaders, strengthened our alliances, and engaged with our brave troops overseas.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world. I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families. And I will always honor and never disparage their service and their sacrifice. I will make sure that we lead the world into the future on space and Artificial Intelligence. That America—not China—wins the competition for the 21st century. And that we strengthen—not abdicate—our global leadership.

Trump, on the other hand, threatened to abandon NATO. He encouraged Putin to invade our allies. Said Russia could quote “do whatever the hell they want.” Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, I met with President Zelensky to warn him about Russia’s plan to invade. I helped mobilize a global response— over 50 countries—to defend against Putin’s aggression. And as President, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.

With respect to the war in Gaza. President Biden and I are working around the clock. Because now is the time to get a hostage deal and ceasefire done. Let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. Because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that the terrorist organization Hamas caused on October 7^th, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.

At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination. And know this: I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists. And I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim-Jong-Un, who are rooting for Trump. Because they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat.

As President, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals. Because, in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and where the United States of America belongs.

Fellow Americans, I love our country with all my heart. Everywhere I go—in everyone I meet—I see a nation ready to move forward. Ready for the next step, in the incredible journey that is America. I see an America where we hold fast to the fearless belief that built our nation, that inspired the world. That here, in this country, anything is possible.

Nothing is out of reach in America, where we care for one another, look out for one another, and recognize that we have so much more in common than what separates us. That none of us has to fail for all of us to succeed. And that, in unity, there is strength.

Our opponents in this race are out there, every day, denigrating America. Talking about how terrible everything is. Well, my mother had another lesson she used to teach. Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are. America, let us show each other—and the world—who we are. And what we stand for: Freedom. Opportunity. Compassion. Dignity. Fairness and endless possibilities.

We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world. And on behalf of our children and grandchildren, and all those who sacrificed so dearly for our freedom and liberty, we must be worthy of this moment. It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done, guided by optimism and faith to fight for this country we love. To fight for the ideals we cherish, and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth: the privilege and pride of being an American. So, let’s get out there and let’s fight for it. Let’s get out there, and let’s vote for it. And together, let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told. Thank you. God bless you. May God bless the United States of America.

-Vice President Kamala Harris