Harris urges public to ‘stay in the fight,’ ‘come back ready’ after the holidays
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged disappointment around her election loss during her remarks on Tuesday, urging voters to “stay in the fight.”
The speech marks the vice president’s most extensive comments since her concession speech following her loss to President-elect Donald Trump in November.
“Over the past several weeks, since the election, I have received tens of thousands of letters from people across our nation, many of them young leaders, Americans from every walk of life, people of every age, race, faith and political party,” Harris said in Prince George’s County, Maryland,. “These letters share a common theme. Yes, there is disappointment, but there is also resolve for the future.”
“As we then approach the end of this year, many people have come up to me telling me they feel tired … maybe even resigned … that they’re not sure whether they have the strength, much less the desire, to stay in the fight. Let me be very clear: No one can walk away. No one can walk away,” she said. “We must stay in the fight, every one of us, including the fight for an economy that works, not just for those at the very top but for working people — for all Americans. To fight to make sure everyone has a fair shot to pursue their ambitions. The fight for our ideals, including the equality among us, the freedoms to which we are entitled, the dignity that we possess and is possessed by every one of us.
“So we must stay in the fight because that is the responsibility, in my opinion, that comes with the privilege of being an American,” she added.
Harris thanked the audience of “young leaders,” including high school and college students, recent graduates and apprentices who have been active in their local communities, in her remarks at Prince George’s Community College. She was joined by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller and Sen.-elect Angela Alsobrooks, all Democrats.
“Everyone, please, get some rest over the holidays and spend time with the people you love,” she concluded. “And then I urge you … I challenge you to come back ready, ready to chart our path into the future, chin up, shoulders back and forever impatient for change … and be ready to get back to work fighting for opportunity and freedom, fighting for fairness and dignity, back to work fighting for this country we love and the future we share.”
The speech followed remarks the vice president gave Sunday with President Joe Biden at the Democratic National Committee’s holiday reception and came amid questions about Harris’ political future after she leaves office on Jan. 20.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump on Monday confirmed he would declare a national emergency to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission.
Overnight, Trump responded to a social media post from Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton, who said earlier this month there are reports the incoming administration is preparing such a declaration and to use “military assets” to deport the migrants.
Trump pledged to get started on mass deportations as soon as he enters office.
“On Day 1, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out,” he said during a rally at Madison Square Garden in the closing days of the presidential race. “I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail, then kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible.”
Already, he’s tapped several immigration hard-liners to serve in key Cabinet positions. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was picked to be homeland security secretary, pending Senate confirmation. Former Acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan was named “border czar.”
Homan previously discussed his vision for mass deportations, saying they would first concentrate on expelling criminals and national security threats. He didn’t rule out deporting families together.
Throughout the campaign, Trump vowed to mobilize the National Guard to assist with the deportation effort. Experts told ABC News such a move would mark a fundamental shift for the military, which does not normally engage with domestic law enforcement issues.
At times, Trump went further, suggesting thousands of troops from overseas be moved to the U.S.-Mexico border.
There are an estimated 11 million unauthorized migrants living in the U.S. without legal immigration status. Removing them could cost billions of dollars per year, according to estimates from the American Immigration Council.
Plus, mass deportations could have a broader economic impact by resulting in a loss of tax revenue and labor shortages.
ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz recently reported from California on the impact Trump’s immigration and mass deportations plans could have on the American agriculture industry.
“If you took away my workforce, you wouldn’t eat. If you go into the San Joaquin Valley and you start doing what you’re saying, it’s over. The country will stop, literally stop because the food system won’t move,” said Manuel Cunha Jr., the president of the Nisei Farmers League.
(WASHINGTON) — Although she was just in her mid-20s, Tulsi Gabbard’s hair had already started turning white shortly before she first set foot in the U.S. Senate as a legislative aide in 2006.
Coming from her native Hawaii, she had landed a job with longtime Hawaii Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka, chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who would become her mentor.
Now, almost 20 years later, the former Democratic congresswoman returns to the Senate to meet with lawmakers, including members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence after appearing with him a number of times on the campaign trail and serving as an honorary co-chair of his transition team.
Gabbard spent the past week in Oklahoma on Army National Guard duty. She currently holds the rank of lieutenant colonel, something supporters argue qualifies her for the job as critics cite her lack of experience.
She’s also facing renewed scrutiny over her past comments on Syria and her meeting with now-overthrown dictator Bashar Assad.
From Hawaii to Kuwait to Congress
By the time she came to the Senate, Gabbard had already made history in Hawaii as one of the youngest lawmakers elected to a state legislature at age 21. Serving alongside her father, Hawaii state Sen. Mike Gabbard, she became part of the first father-daughter combination in a legislature in the country.
As a Senate staffer, Gabbard remained in Hawaii’s National Guard, drilling on the weekends.
During her first yearlong deployment at Joint Base Balad in Iraq, nicknamed “Mortaritaville” for being hit with daily attacks, she’s said fumes from a nearby burn pit would regularly sicken her fellow service members, causing flu-like symptoms they called the “crud.”
In 2007, she attended the Accelerated Officer Candidate School at the Alabama Military Academy, graduating at the top of her class as its first distinguished woman honor graduate. After two years working in the Senate, Gabbard volunteered for a deployment to Kuwait.
As a military police platoon leader and trainer for the Kuwait National Guard’s counterterrorism unit, Gabbard achieved another milestone in 2009, becoming one of the first women to set foot in a Kuwaiti military facility and the first woman to be honored by the Kuwait National Guard.
In her limited free time, Gabbard continued working on her bachelor’s degree from Hawaii Pacific University, taking online classes in an education tent.
Although her hair returned to its natural color, she told ABC News in 2019 she eventually kept a distinctive streak of white.
“It’s a reminder, every single day of the cost of war of those we lost and my mission in life to to seek peace and to fight for peace,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard later returned to Hawaii and ran for Honolulu City Council, serving from 2010 until 2012, before being elected to Congress as the then-youngest female member.
Bipartisan outreach
As a new member of Congress, Gabbard worked to forge relationships with members on both sides of the aisle.
She arrived armed with 434 boxes of macadamia nut toffee, homemade by her mother, for every member of Congress and an additional 435 boxes for staffers. Each box came with a handwritten letter, a form of diplomacy as a Democrat facing a Republican-controlled House.
During her freshman year in Congress in 2013, Gabbard was appointed vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, but stepped down from that position to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid.
She co-chaired the Future Caucus, a bipartisan effort to engage members of Congress under 40 years old. Gabbard also bonded with lawmakers over sports, playing on the Congressional Softball Team with New York Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and joining early morning workouts with colleagues such as Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin. She and Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul co-sponsored legislation, including the Stop Arming Terrorists Act.
After an unsuccessful bid for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination, she left the Democratic Party and became an independent and campaigned for Republicans, including Sens. Mike Lee and Chuck Grassley. She told Trump on a rally stage in October that she was registering as a Republican.
Controversial views on Russia, Syria
Gabbard was one of the first to enter the crowded Democratic 2020 primary and was one of the last three remaining candidates. One of her rivals in that race, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, announced she would oppose Trump’s choice of Gabbard, alleging she had suggested NATO had provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.
“Do you really want her to have all the secrets of the United States and our defense intelligence agencies when she has so clearly has been in Putin’s pocket? That just has to be a hard no,” Warren said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in November.
However, Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri defended Gabbard in November on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” taking aim at accusations that Gabbard was a “Russian asset.”
“It’s a slur, quite frankly. You know, there’s no evidence that she is an asset of another country. She served this country honorably,” Schmitt said.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who entered the Senate as the first female combat veteran while Gabbard was doing the same in the House, has opposed her pick for DNI, alleging she’s been compromised.
“The U.S. intelligence community has identified her as having troubling relationships with America’s foes. And so my worry is that she couldn’t pass a background check,” Duckworth said on CNN’s “State of the Union” in November.
Mullin struck back at Duckworth’s comments, saying “That’s the most dangerous thing she could say — is that a United States lieutenant colonel in the United States Army is compromised and is an asset of Russia.”
“If she was compromised, if she wasn’t able to pass a background check, if she wasn’t able to do her job, she still wouldn’t be in the Army,” he said.
Now, with the rebel takeover of Syria and the fall of Assad, Gabbard is drawing renewed attention to her controversial visit to Syria in 2017 — what she called a fact-finding mission — and sympathy she expressed after meeting with the Syrian dictator, saying the U.S. should stop aiding the “terrorists” trying to overthrow him.
Gabbard noted in 2019 that a CIA program “was directly and indirectly helping to equip and train and provide support to different armed groups, including those who are allied with and affiliated with al-Qaeda, to overthrow the Syrian government.”
The “Stop Arming Terrorist Act” she worked on with Paul in the Senate said the U.S. should stop aiding the “terrorists” trying to overthrow Assad.
Assad has been accused of war crimes against his own people during the Syrian civil war, in which hundreds of thousands have been killed. A few months after meeting with Assad, Gabbard said she was skeptical he had used chemical weapons against his own people, despite evidence from the U.S. government that he had, to argue against military intervention during Trump’s first administration.
Gabbard warned in June of 2019 that she was concerned that the toppling of Assad’s regime could lead to terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda to step in to fill the void and “completely massacre all religious minorities there in Syria.”
In a 2019 interview on ABC’s “The View” while running for president, she called Assad a “brutal dictator,” but said the U.S. regime-change strategy had not improved the lives of the Syrian people.
-ABC News’ Selina Wang contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will mark World AIDS Day on Sunday by debuting the AIDS Memorial Quilt at the White House.
It will be displayed on the South Lawn as the Bidens commemorate the day with survivors, their families and advocates.
A red ribbon will also be displayed on the South Portico of the White House to recognize those who have died due to AIDS-related illnesses, as well as the more than 40 million individuals living with HIV around the world.
The red ribbon — now an annual tradition — made its first appearance in 2007, under the Bush administration.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will mark World AIDS Day on Sunday by debuting the AIDS Memorial Quilt at the White House.
It will be displayed on the South Lawn as the Bidens commemorate the day with survivors, their families and advocates.
A red ribbon will also be displayed on the South Portico of the White House to recognize those who have died due to AIDS-related illnesses, as well as the more than 40 million individuals living with HIV around the world.
The red ribbon — now an annual tradition — made its first appearance in 2007, under the Bush administration.
The White House said in statement that the Biden administration has made ending the HIV epidemic a key priority.
The statement touted the administration’s National HIV/AIDS Strategy, which is focused on reducing new HIV infections, improving outcomes for people with HIV and breaking down societal barriers. It was established in 2021.
The White House Office of National AIDS Policy is set to release a progress report on the Biden administration’s strategy next week.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt, a powerful symbol of the human toll of the virus, was originally displayed on the National Mall during the October 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, at a time when many felt the federal government had been too slow to respond to the crisis.
The quilt, which is regularly displayed across the U.S. as an education tool, now contains nearly 50,000 panels, honoring more than 105,000 lives lost.
HIV infection in the U.S. declined by about 12% overall between 2018 and 2022, but remains a persistent problem, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services announced an effort to end the HIV epidemic in the U.S. It aimed to reduce new infections to 9,300 by 2025 and 3,000 by 2030. However, in 2022, there were more 31,800 estimated new HIV infections, according to the CDC.
