Former Vice President Kamala Harris slammed President Trump for sending the U.S. hurtling towards an financial downturn in her first main speech since dropping the 2024 presidential election to him.
Predicting that Trump’s commerce conflict is “clearly inviting a recession,” the dropping Democratic candidate rallied supporters to push again in opposition to what she known as Trump’s mercurial mismanagement of the federal government and financial system.
“Americans are banding together in the face of the greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history,” Harris mentioned late Wednesday. “The president’s reckless tariffs have hurt workers and families by raising the cost of everyday essentials.”
In essentially the most in depth public remarks since her defeat, Harris mentioned she’s appalled by Trump’s threats to the liberty and livelihoods of on a regular basis People.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris delivers the keynote speech on the Emerge twentieth Anniversary Gala in San Francisco, Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (AP Picture/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
“Instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals,” Harris mentioned.
Harris has been talked about as a potential candidate for president in 2028 or for California governor in 2026. However she didn’t give any clues about her intently watched political future within the speech to EMERGE, a gaggle that promotes girls in politics.
The Wednesday night time speech was timed to mark Trump’s first 100 days again within the White Home. Other than her post-election concession speech, Harris has barely talked about Trump by identify in public because the November vote.
President Donald Trump arrives to talk on his first 100 days at Macomb County Group Faculty Sports activities Expo Middle, Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Warren, Mich. (AP Picture/Alex Brandon)
Within the 15-minute speech, she acknowledged the nervousness and worry that has gripped lots of her supporters since Trump took workplace. However she urged supporters to prepare to struggle again.
“They are counting on the notion that if they can make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others. But what they have overlooked is that fear is not the only thing that’s contagious,” Harris mentioned. “Courage is contagious.”
Harris is step by step ramping up her public presence as Democrats seek for a path ahead after November’s election, by which Trump received the favored vote and Republicans additionally received management of each homes of Congress.
A crowded discipline of high-profile Democrats — from governors to businessmen — are jockeying for management roles inside the occasion, however the former vice chairman retains distinctive affect and energy due to her political seniority.
