Kamala Harris lashes out at Trump as Democrats unite

WASHINGTON: US Vice President Kamala Harris, building Democratic backing for her sudden presidential run, rallied supporters on Monday (Jul 22) with a debut campaign speech vowing to go after Republican nominee Donald Trump like the courtroom prosecutor she once was.

"I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain," Harris told campaign workers 28 hours after President Joe Biden, 81, abandoned the 2024 White House race and endorsed her.

"So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type. In this campaign, I will proudly, I will proudly put my record against his," said Harris, who was attorney general of California and a US senator before serving as Biden's vice president.

The Trump campaign responded to Harris' comments. 

"Kamala Harris is just as incompetent as Joe Biden and even more liberal," said Karoline Leavitt, the campaign's national press secretary.

"Not only does Kamala need to defend her support of Joe Biden’s failed agenda over the past four years, she also needs to answer for her own terrible weak-on-crime record in California."

Trump is due to be sentenced in September after having been found guilty of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star. He also faces criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn Biden's 2020 victory. He falsely claims he lost because of election fraud.

Biden, who pulled out of the race on Sunday amid questions about his age and health, called into Harris' campaign event. Recovering from COVID-19 at his home in Delaware, he sounded hoarse but appreciative of his vice president.

He said he thought he had made the right decision by dropping out. Biden, the oldest person to occupy the Oval Office, said on Sunday he would remain in the presidency until his term ends on Jan 20, 2025.

Harris, 59, outlined a series of policies she promised to pursue including signing laws to protect abortion rights and ban assault rifles and making rebuilding the middle class the focus of her presidency.

Within minutes of receiving Biden's backing on Sunday, Harris began consolidating Democratic support for her presidential bid, securing commitments from hundreds of convention delegates, announcing a massive fundraising haul and earning endorsements from top party figures.

These included former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has remained influential since stepping down as the party's House of Representatives leader in 2022. The AFL-CIO labour union federation, which represents 12.5 million workers, said on Monday it had also endorsed Harris for president.

Rick Mullaney, director of the Public Policy Institute at Jacksonville University, said Harris has gained “a lot of momentum” and secured significant endorsements like Pelosi's.

However, he noted a number of prominent Democrats are holding off because they “want there to be a process”.

These include former president Barack Obama as well as the two top Democrats in Congress - Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader.

“Part of their argument is … there's a threat to democracy when it comes to Donald Trump, and they want to have a process that shows that this was fair, transparent and open,” Mullaney told CNA938.

“I think you're going to see everyone come together in the end. I don't think that's because they have another candidate in mind.”

Bruce Cain, professor of political science at Stanford University, also noted that some Democrats would like to see a more open process and consideration of other candidates.

“A lot will depend on how (Harris) does over the next couple of weeks,” he added.

The Harris campaign aims to secure commitments from a majority of the nearly 4,000 Democratic delegates to next month's Democratic Party convention by Wednesday evening, sources told Reuters, effectively wrapping up the nomination.

Campaign officials and allies have made hundreds of calls urging delegates to nominate Harris for president in the Nov 5 election.

Harris' campaign said it raised US$81 million in the 24 hours following Biden's exit, the most for a single day in the 2024 campaign for either party.

Virtually all of the prominent Democrats who had been seen as potential challengers to Harris have declared support for her, including Governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California and Andy Beshear of Kentucky.

Biden's departure was the latest shock to a White House race that included his disastrous Jun 27 debate performance against former President Trump and the Jul 13 near-assassination of Trump by a gunman during a campaign stop.

Harris lauded Biden for his service to the country. At a White House event to honour college athletes earlier, she said: "Joe Biden's legacy over the last three years is unmatched in modern history."

Harris will travel to Milwaukee on Tuesday in the battleground state of Wisconsin which last week hosted a Republican National Convention that offered a stark display of Trump's dominance over his party.

NEW GENERATION

Harris, who is Black and Asian American, would fashion an entirely new dynamic with Trump, 78, offering a vivid generational and cultural contrast.

Mullaney noted that Harris is young, energetic, and will press her advantages.

“Many Democrats will be excited about the possibility of her doing exactly that. And she'll also have the ability to try to defend the Biden record,” Mullaney added.

“She's a former prosecutor … She will frame this as a prosecutor versus a convicted felon. She will take the high ground on abortion as she sees it.”

While she has just over 100 days of campaigning to win the Oval Office, Mullaney said he believes she has enough time to beat Trump and that it will be a “very competitive race”.

Cain said Harris’ prosecutorial career “signals a certain degree of strength” that will help “counter the stereotypes that people might bring”.

However, the professor pointed to concerns on the ground about the way former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who unsuccessfully ran against Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, was treated by the press.

“For sure, that's something that the party is thinking about. And I'm sure Kamala Harris is thinking about it as she tries to (show) an image of strength to counter the sort of the image that Trump projects,” Cain told CNA’s Asia First programme.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN HAS PREPARED FOR HARRIS FOR WEEKS: SOURCES

The Trump campaign has been preparing for her possible rise for weeks, sources told Reuters. It sent out a detailed critique of her record on immigration and other issues on Monday, accusing her of being more liberal than Biden.

It alleged that Harris favoured abolishing the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and decriminalising border crossings, backed the so-called Green New Deal, supported the administration's electric vehicle mandates and encouraged "defund the police" efforts.

Some of those were positions Harris adopted as an unsuccessful presidential candidate in the 2020 election when she was running on a more liberal agenda than Biden but were not ones that the administration assumed, particularly with regard to border security and law enforcement issues.

Eric Holder, the former US attorney general, and his law firm Covington & Burling LLP will conduct the vetting of Harris' potential running mates, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Trump, whose false claims that his 2020 loss to Biden was the result of fraud inspired the Jan 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol, on Monday, questioned Democrats' right to change candidates.

"They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries," Trump said on his Truth Social site.

At a rally for Trump's running mate, JD Vance, on Monday, Ohio state Senator George Lang called for civil war to save the country if Trump did not win the November election.

Lang later said on X that he regretted the remarks. "We should all be mindful of what is said at political events, myself included," he wrote.

Harris is expected to stick largely to Biden's foreign policy playbook on such issues as China, Iran and Ukraine, but could strike a tougher tone with Israel over the Gaza war if she wins the November election.

But some Democrats were concerned about the country's long history of racial and gender discrimination. The US has not elected a woman president in its nearly 250-year-old history.

Most public polls conducted before Biden dropped out did not find that Harris performed better statistically against Trump than Biden had.

Biden has not been seen in public since testing positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. He tentatively plans to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday if he has recovered.