Vice President Harris accepted her party’s presidential nomination on Thursday night with a speech that asked voters to write “the next great chapter” of American history.
That language pointed to Harris’s extraordinary recent history; she became the nominee after President Biden a month ago decided to not run for reelection and endorsed her.
It also hinted at the history she would make, if she defeats former President Trump this fall, by becoming the first woman to hold the nation’s highest office.
And it was heavily draped in patriotism, a prime focus in the last night of the four-day Democratic convention.
“It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done— guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on earth. The privilege and pride of being an American,” Harris told an enthralled crowed.
“Together let’s write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story every told,” she added, putting herself firmly within her nation’s extraordinary history.
The vice president evoked her background as a prosecutor, a theme she is expected to lean into against Trump.
“And to be clear, for my entire career, I’ve only had one client, the people,” Harris said. “On behalf of the people, on behalf of every American regardless of party, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks, on behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey… on behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination.”
Harris shared her previous fights as attorney general of California, including taking on cartels who trafficked guns and drugs and human beings, fighting for seniors, and fighting for people facing home foreclosures.
“We were underestimated at practically every turn. But we never gave up because the future is always worth fighting for,” she said.
About 15 minutes into her speech, Harris fully turned her attention to Trump, calling him an “unserious man,” but saying the consequences of re-electing him would be serious.
“Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the Capitol where they assaulted law enforcement officers,” she said.
She noted that Trump has been found guilty on fraud charges and was found liable for sexual abuse, and that he’s talked of pardoning those charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
“Consider, consider the power he will have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails. Imagine how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States,” she said.
She circled back to her remarks about the people being her only client, saying Trump’s only client has been “himself.”
Harris, the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, vowed to protect the freedom to vote, saying she wants to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
She also pledged to bring back and sign into law border legislation that a bipartisan group of senators negotiated, and that was effectively killed by Trump and House Republicans, who argued it was too weak.
On foreign policy, Harris said she would ensure America has the best fighting force in the U.S. and vowed to “protect, honor, and never disparage” the service of veterans, to chants of “U.S.A” from the crowd.
Harris also said she wants to strengthen U.S. global leadership, arguing that Trump has threatened to abandon NATO and U.S. allies.
She addressed the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, a hot button issue that has caused demonstrators to gather outside of the convention and protest the Biden administration’s handling of the war and pro-Israel stance.
“Now is the time to get a hostage deal and a cease-fire deal done,” Harris said to applause from the crowd, before adding that she would always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself in the wake of the deadline Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.
“At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating,” Harris said. “So many innocent lives lost, desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again.”
She reiterated that she and Biden are working to end the war, calling for the Palestinian people to “realize their right to dignity, freedom, security,” prompting some of the loudest yells of the night from the convention crowd.
Her remarks did not show a break with Biden on the war, however, which some Democrats had hoped to hear.
The vice president said that dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un are “rooting for Trump” to win in November “because they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors.”
“In the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and I know where the United States belongs,” she said.
Harris spent much of the beginning of her remarks paying homage to her late mother, Shyamala Harris.
“I miss her every day, especially right now. And I know she’s looking down and smiling,” she said.
She said her mother traveled at 19 years old from India to the U.S., with the goal of finding the cure to breast cancer.
Harris quoted her father, who split up with her mother while Harris was in elementary school, telling her when she was young: “Run, Kamala, run. Don’t be afraid, don’t let anything stop you.”
“My mother was a brilliant, five-foot-tall brown woman with an accent,” she said. “As a child, I saw how the world sometimes treated her. But my mother never lost her cool.”
“She also taught us, never do anything half assed,” she added.
Harris first thanked her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, when she took the stage.
“Happy anniversary Dougie, I love you so very much,” she said. The couple marked their 10th anniversary on Thursday.
Emhoff, his children Ella and Cole, Harris’s sister Maya Harris, brother-in-law Tony West and their daughter Meena Harris sat in the front row during the remarks. The family and Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) and his family joined her on stage for the balloon drop after her speech.
