Kamala Harris has taken the next step towards becoming a presidential candidate – and sharply attacked Donald Trump in a speech to campaign staff. The US Vice President said on Monday (local time) that she now has the support of enough delegates to be officially chosen as her party’s candidate at the party convention in Chicago in August. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, who has dropped out of the election campaign, is expected to return to the White House on Tuesday after his corona illness.
“Tonight, I am proud that I have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee,” Harris said in a speech to Biden’s current campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware.
Harris also sharply criticized the 78-year-old Republican presidential candidate. Referring to her time as a prosecutor in California, she said she knew “guys like Trump.” At that time, she had “taken on all kinds of perpetrators”: perpetrators who abused women and deceived consumers, fraudsters who would “break the rules for their own benefit.”
Harris was combative about the presidential election. “We will win,” she said in Wisconsin. That is why she personally addressed the campaign team after the “rollercoaster ride” of the past few days. “We all have so many mixed feelings about this – I just have to say, I love Joe Biden,” she said.
The incumbent president joined the meeting – where he once again backed Harris. “She is the best,” he told campaign staff. “I know yesterday’s news is surprising and hard for you to hear, but it was the right thing to do,” he added, referring to his decision the day before to withdraw from the race for the White House. His Democratic Party once again called on Biden to support Harris.
In her address to campaign workers, Harris also set the tone for her upcoming campaign appearances. Among other things, she announced that she would make the right to abortion a central part of her campaign. “We will fight for reproductive freedom – knowing that if Trump gets the chance, he will sign an abortion ban to ban abortion in every single state.”
On Tuesday, Harris is expected at her first official campaign event in Milwaukee. The choice of the largest city in the state of Wisconsin is no coincidence: the Republican Party convention had previously taken place there, where Trump was officially chosen as the presidential candidate. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden won the contested swing state – the result in Wisconsin is also likely to be decisive for the election outcome in November.
Even before her meeting with Biden’s campaign team, Harris had achieved an important success. Several US media reported that with 1,976 delegates out of almost 4,000, she had exceeded the number needed to finally secure the Democratic nomination in the coming weeks.
The Democrats will nominate their candidate at the party convention in August. The presidential election will take place on November 5.
Biden announced on Sunday that he would not run for the presidential election in November for health reasons. The 81-year-old had come under increasing criticism after a weak performance in a TV debate against Trump. Biden announced that he was now supporting his vice president. Harris herself then declared that she wanted to “earn and win” the nomination. Shortly afterwards, Harris received more and more support from her party: Several governors, congressmen and other influential party members spoke out in favor of the 59-year-old. In addition, record donations were received for Harris’ campaign.
Biden, meanwhile, was expected to return to the White House on Tuesday. After his corona infection and for the first time since withdrawing his candidacy, the president is expected to leave his beach house in Delaware in the afternoon (local time) and arrive at the White House later, according to his official schedule. On Monday, Biden’s doctor, Kevin O’Connor, said the US president was feeling better and that his symptoms had “almost completely subsided.”
According to a US government official, Biden will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Thursday. Israel originally said that the two politicians would speak on Tuesday. Netanyahu is scheduled to give a speech to the US Congress on Wednesday.
Netanyahu, who arrived in Washington on Monday, is also scheduled to meet Kamala Harris during his visit this week. The meeting will be separate from the one between Biden and Netanyahu, an adviser to the vice president said.
