US vice-president Kamala Harris said she would empower labour unions and prevent school book bans while addressing a powerful teachers’ union on Thursday, seeking to draw a sharp contrast with her Republican rival for the presidency Donald Trump.
In a 20-minute address in Houston to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Ms Harris focused on economic policy and workers’ rights, touting plans for affordable healthcare and childcare and criticising Republicans for blocking gun limits in the wake of school shootings.
“Today we face a choice between two very different visions of our nation, one focused on the future and the other focused on the past, and we are fighting for the future,” Ms Harris (59) said. “Donald Trump and his extreme allies want to take our nation back to failed trickle-down economic policies, back to union-busting, back to tax breaks for billionaires.”
Ms Harris’s visit to the AFT, which endorsed her earlier this week, continues a blitz of campaign appearances since president Joe Biden (81), dropped his re-election bid on Sunday and urged Democrats to coalesce behind Ms Harris.
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“We want to ban assault weapons and they want to ban books,” Ms Harris said, a reference to the push by some Republicans to remove books that address gender and sexuality from some school libraries. The Second Amendment of the US constitution defends the right to bear arms.
Ms Harris’s move to the top of the ticket has shaken up a stagnant presidential race. A series of opinion polls conducted since Sunday, including one by Reuters/Ipsos, showed Ms Harris and Mr Trump beginning their head-to-head contest on roughly equal footing, setting the stage for a close-fought campaign over the next four-and-a-half months until the November 5th election.
Mr Trump (78), on Wednesday night laid into Ms Harris in his first rally since she replaced Mr Biden atop the ticket.
He branded Ms Harris a “radical left lunatic” after she had dominated the campaign the two previous days with withering attacks on him that pointedly raised his felony convictions, his liability for sexual abuse, and fraud judgments against his business, charitable foundation and private university.
Former president Barack Obama has been in regular contact with Ms Harris and plans to soon endorse her as the Democratic presidential candidate, a source familiar with his plans said on Thursday.
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, who retains deep influence within the Democratic Party, endorsed Ms Harris on Thursday alongside dozens of other female lawmakers.
After spending much of the campaign attacking Mr Biden as old and feeble, Mr Trump now faces a younger candidate in Ms Harris, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice-president.
The Harris campaign released its first video advertisement online on Thursday. Ms Harris narrates the ad, framing the campaign as a battle to protect Americans’ individual liberties to the sound of Beyoncé’s song Freedom.
Ms Harris’s rise has largely pushed Mr Trump out of the headlines, a week after the Republican National Convention and 12 days after he narrowly survived an assassination attempt that wounded his ear.
FBI director Christopher Wray told the House judiciary committee on Wednesday that investigators are not certain whether Mr Trump’s injury was caused by a bullet or by shrapnel. Mr Trump has said a bullet hit his ear.
A Trump campaign spokesman, Jason Miller, called the idea that Mr Trump was not hit by a bullet a “conspiracy”, adding an expletive. – Reuters
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