CV NEWS FEED // Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night.
“I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America,” Harris stated. “Our nation with this election has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past.”
“A chance to chart a new way forward,” she added. “Not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans.”
Harris promised that if elected in November, she would be a “president for all Americans.”
President Joe Biden made the same promise verbatim after media networks projected that he and Harris, his then-running mate, had won the 2020 presidential election.
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The vice president’s speech closed the four-day-long Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago.
Harris began her remarks by thanking Biden – who just one month ago decided to end his re-election bid and endorse her.
“Your record is extraordinary, as history will show, and your character is inspiring,” she said. Biden spoke on Monday during the DNC’s first night.
Harris continued: “The path that led me here in recent weeks was no doubt unexpected.”
At the time of the president’s withdrawal, he had been the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for over four months after winning almost all the party’s primaries by landslide margins.
Multiple critics across the political spectrum have scrutinized the unusual nature of Harris’ last-minute nomination, and many have denounced it as “undemocratic.”
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Harris spent several minutes discussing her childhood and upbringing.
She stated that she decided to become a prosecutor in high school after learning that her best friend was being sexually abused.
“I believe everyone has a right to safety, to dignity, and to justice,” Harris said, reflecting on this moment in her life.
“As a prosecutor, when I had a case, I charged it not in the name of the victim but in the name of the people,” she added.
Harris has served as both San Francisco district attorney and attorney general of California.
Many critics have pointed to George Gage, an elderly black defendant whom Harris allowed to remain in prison despite evidence showing that he was likely innocent.
“For my entire career I’ve only had one client,” Harris claimed during her DNC acceptance speech. “The people.”
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“You can always trust me to put country above party and self,” the Democratic nominee continued “To hold sacred America’s fundamental principles. From the rule of law, to free and fair elections, to the peaceful transfer of power.”
Harris vowed to “be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads and listens. Who is realistic, practical, and has common sense.”
She said that as California’s attorney general, she “fought against the cartels that traffic in guns, and drugs, and human beings. Who threatened the security of our border and the safety of our communities.”
Harris emphasized that the election is a “fight for America’s future.”
“This election is not only the most important of our lives, it is one of the most important in the life our nation,” she went on. “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 what [Trump] intends to do if we give him power again,” she said.
Harris claimed that Trump has an “explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents, and anyone he sees as the enemy.” She did not cite any example of Trump expressing that intent.
“America, we are not going back,” Harris said. “And we are charting a new way forward.”
“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,” she said.
“But tonight in America, too many women are not able to make those decisions,” she continued, referring to abortion:
And 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.
In his words, “I did it and I’m proud to have done it.”
Harris indicated that she would “proudly sign” a bill to “restore reproductive freedom.”
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“I know the importance of safety and security especially at our border,” she said later in her speech.
She went on to repeat a popular Democratic Party talking point that a widely criticized border deal from earlier this year was the “strongest border bill in decades.”
In February, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, said that the same bill Harris praised would not “come close to ending the border catastrophe the [Biden-Harris administration] has created.” Republican elected officials and their constituents also criticized the bill for providing more funding for the military conflict in Ukraine than for border security.
In her speech, Harris promised that if elected president she would bring back the controversial deal and “sign it into law.”
“And America,” she added, “we also must be steadfast in advancing our security and values abroad.”
Harris said she would ensure “that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century.”
She claimed that “dictators like Kim Jong Un” are “rooting for Trump.” She further alleged that Trump “won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself.”
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“I see a nation that is ready to move forward,” Harris said toward the end of her speech.
The candidate said that she envisions “an America where we care for one another, look out for one another.”
“None of us has to fail for all of us to succeed,” she said.
“America,” Harris continued, “let us show each other and the world who we are and what we stand for. Freedom, opportunity, compassion, dignity, fairness, and endless possibilities.”
“Let’s get out there, let’s fight for it!” she exclaimed. “And together let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.”
