2020 race: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris in first joint campaign appearance
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris come together on stage for the first time, with Ms Harris declaring the coming election will define the future of America.
The Democrat presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have come together on stage for the first time, with Ms Harris declaring the coming election will define the future of America.
“This election is about more than politics, it’s about who we are as a country,” Ms Harris said in a speech in front of US flags in a school in Mr Biden’s hometown in Delaware.
“This is a moment of real consequence for America. Everything we care about, our economy, our health, our children, the kind of country we live in, it’s all on the line,” Ms Harris said.
Both Mr Biden and Ms Harris made their speeches with no live audience in front of only a handful of media in the first taste of a major socially-distanced election event of the 2020 election campaign.
Mr Biden said he had no doubt that he had made the right choice by choosing the 55-year-old daughter of Indian and Jamaican Immigrants as his running mate.
“This morning, all across the nation, little girls woke up, especially little black and brown girls, who so often feel overlooked and undervalued in their communities,” Mr Biden said. “But today just maybe they’re seeing themselves for the first time in a new way: as the stuff of president and vice presidents.
“One of the reasons that I chose Kamala is that we both believe that we can define America simply in one word: possibilities,” he said.
.@KamalaHarris is the daughter of proud immigrants—a mother from India and a father from Jamaica—who raised her to take action.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 12, 2020
That’s exactly what this moment calls for: action. And we hope you’ll take action with us: https://t.co/K3mVwfTxXJ pic.twitter.com/MZLAx9IN6C
In a sometimes emotional speech, Ms Harris spoke of her close friendship with Joe Biden’s late son Beau, a former state Attorney-General, who died of brain cancer in 2015. Mr Biden said Beau’s strong admiration for Ms Harris, a former California Attorney-General, was a major factor in him choosing her as his running mate.
Ms Harris also spoke of her own immigrant upbringing and of how her parents met during the civil rights protests of the 1960s and how their lessons about the need to march and fight for justice and equality had never left her.
She said her parents raised her to believe that it was up to ‘every generation of Americans to keep on marching.’
Ms Harris was sharply critical of Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic and the subsequent health and economic devastation.
“The president’s mismanagement of the pandemic has plunged us into the worst economic crisis since the great depression,’ she said. “America is crying out for leadership. Yet we have a president who cares more about himself than the people who elected him.
“In just 83 days we have a chance to choose a better future for our country.”
Mr Biden described his choice of Ms Harris as ‘a great day for our campaign, it’s a great day for America.
“This is a serious moment for our nation, we are at one of those inflection points, a life changing election for this nation,” the former Vice President said.
“The choice we make in November is going to decide the future of America for a very long time.
“Kamala is ready to do this job from day one,’ he said.
“(She) is smart, she is tough, she is experienced, she is a proven fighter for the backbone of this country, the middle class … she knows how to govern she knows how to make the hard calls.”
"America is crying out for leadership."
— SkyNews (@SkyNews) August 12, 2020
Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris have spoken at their first joint campaign appearance.
Latest US news here: https://t.co/5PIgDczUxv pic.twitter.com/P4hq4QDoDG
Mr Biden on Wednesday (AEDT) chose California Senator as his Vice Presidential running mate – the first time a black woman has been on a presidential ticket. If Mr Biden wins in November, Ms Harris would become the first female Vice President.
Ms Harris was a former California Attorney-General and a district Attorney before being elected to the US Senate in 2016.
Meanwhile Mr Trump and Republicans have stepped up their attacks on Ms Harris since the VP announcement, describing her as a creature of the radical left and a phony.
Mr Trump tweeted that Ms Harris was the sort of opponent he dreams about.
“@KamalaHarris started strong in the Democrat Primaries, and finished weak, ultimately fleeing the race with almost zero support, that’s the kind of opponent everyone dreams of,’ the president tweeted.
Later at his White House press briefing Mr Trump said of Ms Harris: “She went down in a terrible way (in the Democrat presidential race) and she said very horrible things about Biden and now she’s running for vice president.’ Mr Trump said Ms Harris was “a very risky pick...I think she’s going to be a big failure.’
Ms Harris styles herself as a progressive in her politics but her views straddle the liberal and moderate wings of the Democrat party.
When she was Attorney-General, she gained a reputation for being tough on law and order, a record which has caused concern among liberal Democrats.
But the Biden camp believes Ms Harris’ law and order background is an advantage in an election where Mr Trump has tried to portray Democrats as being weak on law and order.
In announcing Ms Harris as his running mate, Mr Biden described her as “a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants.”
Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia
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