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Warning that America is in the midst of a “fight for our most fundamental freedoms,” Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday challenged a group of education and labor activists to join her against Republican “extremists” as she campaigns to deny Donald Trump a second term in the White House.
Harris, who was addressing a gathering of the powerful American Federation of Teachers union, opened her remarks with words of praise for President Joe Biden and the Oval Office address he delivered late Wednesday to explain his decision not to seek a second term and endorse the vice president to run in his stead.
She said Biden “showed once again what true leadership looks like” with his “poignant” remarks, and praised the 46th president for leading “with grace and strength and bold vision and deep compassion.”
But Harris quickly turned to the issue at hand, the fight against Trump and his Make America Great Again movement, describing it as a union-busting force that is looking to “return America to a dark past” by implementing the plans outlined in the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” blueprint for a second Trump administration.
She said Trump “and his extreme allies “are trying to take our nation back to failed trickle down economic policies, back to union busting, back to tax breaks for billionaires.”
“Donald Trump and his allies want to cut Medicare and Social Security, to stop student loan forgiveness for teachers and other public servants ... He intends to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and make working families foot the bill, and he intends to end the Affordable Care Act,” she said.
“You know, America, has tried these failed economic policies before, but we are not going back. We are not going back.”
Harris told the audience of unionized teachers that the country would instead “move forward” by giving workers more tools to organize and protecting collective bargaining while ending “union busting” policies favored by Republicans.
“The fact is, unions helped build America's middle class. And when unions are strong, America is strong,” she said, cribbing an oft-repeated line from Biden.
But the vice president also warned that Trump and his allies are looking to do more than institute regressive economic plans.
She said Democrats are engaged in “a fight for the future” against a GOP-led “full-on attack on hard-won, hard-fought freedoms” such as the right to vote and reproductive rights for women.
“While you teach students about democracy and representative government, extremists attack the sacred freedom to vote; While you try to create safe and welcoming places where our children can learn, extremists attack our freedom to live safe from gun violence,” she said.
“And while you teach students about our nation's past, these extremists attack the freedom to learn and acknowledge our nation's true and full history, including book bans,” she added.
“In this moment, we are in a fight for our most fundamental freedoms, and to this room of leaders, I say: Bring it on!”
The vice president’s remarks come just hours after her newly-rebranded campaign rolled out its first video in which the cause of “freedom” is positioned as a centerpiece of her run for the presidency.
The advertisement touched on key messages of abortion rights, tackling gun violence and LGBTQ+ rights — as well as preventing the “chaos” of a second Trump term.
“In this election, we each face a question,” she says while Beyoncé’s 2016 hit Freedom — which the singer gave her blessing to be used as Harris’ official campaign anthem — plays in the background.
The new campaign spot caps a frenetic five-day period which saw Harris emerge as the party’s presumptive nominee on the heels of Biden’s withdrawal and endorsement, then secure a record-breaking $81 million fundraising haul in the first 24 hours of her run while she garnered enough delegates to clinch the party’s nomination when delegates hold a virtual roll call early next month.
