In her first major speech since leaving the White House, former Vice President Kamala Harris called on Americans to resist what she described as President Donald Trump’s assault on truth, democracy, and the economy.
Speaking at the annual Emerge gala — an organization focused on training Democratic women to run for office — the former vice president delivered a fiery critique of Trump’s leadership, warning that the country is heading into what she called a “man-made economic crisis.”
“We all know, President Trump, his administration and their allies are counting on the notion that fear can be contagious,” Harris told the crowd. “But what they’ve overlooked is that fear isn’t the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious.”
Harris said the administration is abandoning the nation’s core values, operating not in chaos, but with deliberate speed.
“A vessel is being used for the swift implementation of an agenda that has been decades in the making,” she said. “An agenda to slash public education. An agenda to shrink government and then privatize its services. All while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us.”
A day after Trump reached 100 days in office, Harris accused him of betraying his promise to cut costs. She said working families and small businesses are being punished instead.
“Some people are describing what’s been happening in recent months as absolute chaos. And of course I understand why,” Harris said. “It’s certainly true of those tariffs. Tariffs that — as I predicted — are clearly inviting a recession.”
She called Trump’s tariff policy the “greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history,” warning that the trade war is driving up costs, damaging retirement accounts, and crippling small businesses.
“Instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals,” she said.
Many people have taken to social media to criticize the president and show support for Harris’ recent comments.
“Harris is right! Trump has degraded U.S. democracy into a KLEPTOCRACY, where poor [and] middle class Americans labor… paying his tariffs [and] the donor class, led by Trump himself, deregulate government agencies to benefit the wealthy [and] deprive the rest of us,” the social media user wrote. “Hands Off!”
While Harris said she wasn’t offering all the answers, she insisted that Americans must keep fighting.
“The one check, the one balance, the one power that must not fail is the voice of the people,” she said.
The former vice president ended with a blunt message.
“Things are probably going to get worse before they get better,” Harris said. “But we are ready for it.”