Former Vice President Kamala Harris slammed the Trump administration in a speech Wednesday night at a Democratic women’s group gala, accusing it of “the wholesale abandonment” of “America’s highest ideals.”
“Now I know tonight’s event happens to coincide with the 100 days after the inauguration, and I’ll leave it to others to give a full accounting of what has happened so far,” Harris said at the Emerge America event in San Francisco.
“But I will say this: instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals,” the former vice president added.
The former Democratic presidential candidate, who ran against President Donald Trump in the 2024 race for the White House, said the current administration and its supporters “are counting on the notion that fear can be contagious.”
“They are counting on the notion that if they make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others,” Harris added. “But what they’re overlooking, what they have overlooked, is that fear is not the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious.”
Harris’s speech came one day after Trump’s 100th day in office in his second term, which has been marked by drastic action from his administration on issues like immigration and trade policy.
In the same 100 days, Democrats have been trying to figure out their path ahead after losing the White House and Senate, and not gaining back the House in November’s election. There has been infighting among those on the American left about how to present the party to Americans and what language to use.
Recent polling has also found Trump’s approval rating among Americans slipping in the first few months of his second term. In a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, the president’s approval rating dropped from 45% in February to 39% in April.
A recent DDHQ/Decision Desk poll found that 56% of voters disapprove of the job the president is doing.
NewsNation affiliate The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.