Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at her first fundraiser since becoming the Democrats’ presumptive White House nominee, saying he is committed to eroding Americans’ freedoms.
Harris traveled to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on Saturday, where her campaign announced she expects to raise more than $1.4 million from hundreds of spectators at the Colonial Theatre. That would be $1 million more than the original goal she set for the event before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
She told a crowd of cheering supporters that she entered the race as an “underdog,” expressing confidence that her growing campaign could defeat Trump.
“I will fight to move our country forward. Donald Trump wants to take our country backwards,” Harris said.
Harris also took aim at Trump and his fellow senator J.D. Vance as they launch bizarre attacks on her and other Democrats. The vice president appeared to be referring to a 2021 interview with Vance in which he slammed some prominent Democrats, including Harris, as “childless women” with “no direct stake” in America without biological children.
Harris’ description of the Republican ticket as “weird” appears to be part of a concerted effort by her campaign to portray some of Trump and Vance’s rhetoric as questionable. Earlier this week, the Harris campaign called Vance “weird and creepy” for some of his stances on women’s reproductive rights on the social media site X. Meanwhile, Trump has referenced fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter from the movie “Silence of the Lambs” in stump speeches.
“These guys are so weird,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat who is on Harris’s shortlist for vice president, said in an interview with MSNBC earlier this week. “They’re running for the He-Man woman-hating club or something.”
“This is a people-powered campaign. And we have momentum,” Harris said.
Harris, a former prosecutor in his home state of California, also poked fun at Trump’s legal troubles. She mentioned his recent conviction in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records, a jury finding the former president liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, and the $25 million in compensation paid to attendees of a now-shuttered real estate seminar called Trump University.
“I’ve dealt with people like him my entire career,” Harris said, adding, “So in this campaign, and I say that with all seriousness, I will proudly put my record up against his any day.”
Harris began her remarks with praise for Biden, who opted to end his re-election campaign and endorse Harris last weekend after his campaign stalled following his poor performance in the June 27 debate against Trump.
He described Biden’s legacy of accomplishments over the past three and a half years as “unmatched in modern history.”
Trump on Saturday labeled Harris a “radical left wing lunatic” who wants to defund the police during a keynote address at a bitcoin conference in Nashville.
He said she’s worse than Biden, but she’s probably his second choice to run against after Biden.
Trump told a crowd of bitcoin supporters that he would adopt the cryptocurrency more than the Biden-Harris administration and vowed to replace “Biden-Harris economic stagnation with an economic boom.”
The vice president told supporters at his fundraiser in Massachusetts that his economic agenda would be very different from that of Trump, who he claimed has an agenda focused solely on lowering tax rates for the wealthiest Americans and improving the financial condition of corporations.
“Building the middle class will be the defining goal of my presidency,” Harris said. “Make no mistake, this campaign is not just about us versus Donald Trump. Our campaign has always been about two very different visions for our nation.”
In addition, the vice president’s office announced that Harris will travel to Atlanta on Tuesday for a campaign event, and to Houston on Thursday to attend a memorial service for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, 74, a longtime Democratic House member who died on July 20.
Jackson Lee, who had pancreatic cancer, led federal efforts to protect women from domestic violence and to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday.
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