Kamala Harris kicks off her presidential campaign, says Trump wants to take US backwards

Washington, Jul 23 (PTI) US Vice President Kamala Harris has kicked off her presidential campaign with a scathing attack on her Republican rival Donald Trump, alleging the former president wants to take the country backwards.

Addressing her campaign staffers at Wilmington in Delaware on Monday, Harris (59) alleged that Trump's Project 2025 would "weaken the middle class and bring us backwards to the failed trickle-down policies that gave huge tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and made working families pay for the cost".

Biden's former campaign team has been rechristened Harris Campaign, a day after the 81-year-old incumbent president announced that he was withdrawing from the race to be the next president and endorsed Harris, who is of both Indian and African origin, as the Democratic Party's new nominee for the November 5 general elections.

The vice president told the campaign staffers on Monday that she was retaining the same team from the Biden-Harris campaign.

Targeting her Republican rival, Harris said, "Donald Trump wants to take our country backwards to a time before many of our fellow Americans had full freedoms and rights. But we believe in a brighter future that makes room for all Americans. We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead." "We believe in a future where no child has to grow up in poverty, where every person can buy a home, start a family, and build wealth and where every person has access to paid family leave and affordable child care. That's the future we see," she said.

"Together we fight to build a nation where every person has affordable healthcare, where every worker is paid fairly, and where every senior can retire with dignity. All of this will be a defining goal of my presidency because we know when our middle class is strong, America is strong." That's not the future Donald Trump is fighting for, Harris alleged.

"He and his extreme Project 2025 will weaken the middle class and bring us backwards, back to the failed trickle-down policies that gave huge tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and made working families pay the cost," she said.

Harris recalled that before being elected as vice president or US senator, she was the Attorney General of California and even before that a courtroom prosecutor.

"In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds -- predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type," she said amid cheers from her campaign staffers.

"And in this campaign, I will proudly put my record against his. As a young prosecutor when I was in the Alameda County district attorney's office in California, I specialized in cases involving sexual abuse. Donald Trump was found liable by a jury for committing sexual abuse," she said.

Harris said that as the Attorney General of California, she took on one of the country's largest for-profit colleges and put it out of business.

"Donald Trump ran a for-profit college -- Trump University. That was forced to pay USD 25 million to the students it scammed. As district attorney to go after polluters, I created one of the first environmental justice units in our nation. Donald Trump stood in Mar-a-Lago and told big oil lobbyists he would do their bidding for a USD 1 billion campaign contribution,” she claimed.

"During the foreclosure crisis, I took on the big Wall Street banks and won USD 20 billion for California families, holding those banks accountable for fraud. Donald Trump was just found guilty of 34 counts of fraud," the vice president said.

She, however, asserted that the campaign was "not just about us versus Donald Trump".

"Our campaign has always been about two different versions of what we see as the future of our country, two different visions for the future of our country, one focused on the future, the other focused on the past," Harris added.

Kevin Munoz, the spokesperson for Harris' campaign, has claimed that there has been a groundswell behind Kamala Harris and the campaign has raised USD 81 million in its first 24 hours, adding to the near quarter-of-a-billion dollar war chest already amassed this election cycle.

In a move that would give her access to the campaign funds, the Biden-Harris campaign amended filings with the Federal Election Commission to rename its principal committee and declare Harris a candidate for president.

Though Biden's endorsement almost seals Harris' position as the presidential nominee of her party, she still needs to get elected by the party's delegates during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago from August 19-22.

Biden has won 3,896 delegates as against 1,976 required to win the party's presidential nomination.

Following Biden's decision, Harris, who has been serving as the US' first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president since 2021, immediately secured the endorsement of former president Bill Clinton, thus making it a bit easier for her to win the delegate battle during the party convention.

An "overwhelming majority" of state Democratic Party chairs have announced their support for Vice President Harris as their nominee for president, the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC) has said in a statement. PTI