‘Really awful’: Kamala Harris’ election post-mortem video widely mocked

Washington: Kamala Harris has spoken out about her election defeat in a widely pilloried video in which she talked up her losing campaign’s record fundraising haul and urged demoralised Democrats to continue to mobilise against Donald Trump.

After weeks of silence and a brief holiday in Hawaii, the US vice president appeared in a 10-minute video to thank supporters and encouraged them to remain resilient after Trump’s election victory.

Vice President Kamala Harris told her supporters to stay positive and praised their “ability to engage and inspire”.Credit: X/TheDemocrats

“The outcome of this election, obviously, is not what we wanted,” she said. “It is not what we worked so hard for, but I am proud of the race we ran, and your role in this was critical. What we did in 107 days was unprecedented.

“You have the same ability to engage and inspire. So don’t ever let anybody or any circumstance take your power from you.”

The video went viral on social media but was widely mocked by critics noting Harris’ tired and somewhat rattled appearance, with some going so far as to question whether she was under the influence of alcohol.

In a sentiment shared by many, TV personality Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late former Arizona Republican senator John McCain, also called for Democrats to remove the short clip posted to the party’s X account.

“Take this down,” McCain wrote. “She’s still the sitting vice president for God’s sake – this is awful. Like really, really awful.”

Harris’ comment about the “historic $US1.4 billion ($2.2 billion)” raised from grassroots supporters angered some donors, who questioned how so much money could be spent, only to lose all seven battleground states, the popular vote and both houses of Congress.

Speaking on News Nation, mega-donor John Morgan, who refused to back Harris’ presidential bid, said the expenditure would “follow Harris for the rest of her career”.

“I think this disqualifies her forever,” said the founder of Washington-based law firm Morgan & Morgan. “If you can’t run a campaign, you can’t run America.”

Harris’ video was the first time she had spoken publicly about the election since her concession speech at Howard University on November 6.

Emotional supporters react as US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks following her election defeat.Credit: Bloomberg

It came as Trump’s campaign revealed that several of his cabinet and staffing picks had been targeted by bomb threats and swatting – a process that has become quite common in America, whereby police are called to someone’s home to check what often turns out to be a hoax.

The campaign has not disclosed who was targeted, however, New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick for UN ambassador; Matt Gaetz, Trump’s initial choice for attorney-general; and former congressman Lee Zeldin, who has been tapped to head the Environmental Protection Agency are among them.

“Last night and this morning, several of president[-elect] Trump’s cabinet nominees and administration appointees were targeted in violent, un-American threats to their lives and those who live with them,” said Trump’s spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.

“In response, law enforcement acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted. President Trump and the entire transition team are grateful for their swift action.”

Elise Stefanik, Donald Trump’s pick for UN ambassador, said she had been threatened. Credit: Bloomberg

President Joe Biden’s decision to stand down on July 21 and elevate Harris as the Democratic candidate changed the trajectory of the 2024 presidential race and broke fundraising records in the three months up to election day.

However, after her crushing defeat, the campaign’s spending and political strategy have come under growing scrutiny amid recriminations about what went wrong.

As the soul-searching continued, Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, senior adviser David Plouffe, deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks and senior adviser Stephanie Cutter, appeared on the left-leaning Pod Save America podcast to provide their insights, blaming Biden, the media, and the truncated campaign time frame.

Plouffe, a former Obama adviser, rejected as “nonsense” the idea that Harris should have done more to educate voters about who she was as a candidate rather than focus on Trump.

“To win a race like this given the political atmospherics, which were quite challenging, we had to raise the risk of a Trump second term,” he said.

Dillon, meanwhile, said perceptions that the vice president spent too many weeks avoiding interviews were “completely bullshit” and said that when Harris did do interviews, the questions were “small and processy”, and they did not help to inform voters wanting to know about her. Cutter added that many of the questions were just “dumb”.

Harris also received a lot of criticism during the campaign over comments she made on the TV show The View in which she said there wasn’t anything she would have done differently than Biden.

This became an instant attack ad for the Trump campaign and one of the most damaging errors for Harris as she tried to present herself to voters as the candidate of change.

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden at a rally together for her campaign in Maryland in August.Credit: Eric Lee/The New York Times

Asked about this on the podcast, Cutter said the campaign tried to differentiate Harris from Biden by talking about her as a new generational leader who had spent most of her career outside the Washington beltway.

“We were trying to tell a story and give the impression that she was different without pointing to a specific issue,” she explained.

Elsewhere, veteran Democratic Party strategist James Carville hit out at young progressives in the Harris campaign, suggesting their role in thwarting a potential interview with Joe Rogan may have contributed to her crushing defeat.

“The vice president was thinking about going on Joe Rogan’s show, and a lot of the younger, progressive staffers pitched a hissy fit,” he said. “What I would tell them: ‘Not only am I not interested in your f---ing opinion, I’m not even gonna call you by your name. You’re 23 years old, I don’t really give a shit what you think’.”

Harris, meanwhile, used her video to urge supporters to stay positive.

“I know this is an uncertain time,” she said. “It feels heavy, and I just have to remind you: don’t you ever let anybody take your power from you.”

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