Former Vice President Kamala Harris said President Donald Trump has already ushered in a “constitutional crisis” in his first 100 days in office in her first major address since losing the 2024 presidential election.
“Instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals,” Harris told supporters in San Francisco on Wednesday evening.
Harris argued that while the Trump administration is instilling fear to implement its “narrow, self-serving vision,” the American people are demonstrating resolve in the face of pressure.
“What they have overlooked is that fear is not the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious,” she said.
“The courage of Americans who are banding together in the face of the greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history,” the former Democratic presidential nominee continued, citing Trump’s “reckless” tariffs that are raising the costs of products and hurting American businesses, both large and small.
Harris was speaking at an event hosted by Emerge America, a partisan nonprofit that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office. The organization backed Harris in 2003 when she ran for San Francisco district attorney, which marked the start of her political career in California, and eventually, national politics.
Harris went on to praise the courage demonstrated by people who speak out against the Trump administration’s alleged violations of court orders or its efforts to detain and deport U.S. citizens without due process.
There have been a few instances of U.S. citizen children who were recently removed along with their parents believed to be illegal immigrants. In one case involving a two-year-old citizen, a judge found the child was sent away with “no meaningful process.” The move is in line with Trump’s executive order that limits birthright citizenship to children born to citizens or to lawful permanent residents.
Earlier this week, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan disputed the use of the word “deported” to characterize the removal of some children from the U.S.
“They weren’t deported. We don’t deport U.S. citizens. Their parents made that decision, not the United States government,” Homan told reporters.
Harris also commended judges who have upheld the rule of law and universities that have defied the Trump administration’s “unconstitutional demands,” referring to the federal government’s civil rights actions targeting higher education institutions, including Columbia University.
“We are living in a moment when the checks and balances upon which we have historically relied have begun to buckle, and we here know that when the checks and balances ultimately collapse if Congress fails to do its part, or if the courts fail to do their part, or if both do their part, but the president defies them anyway,” she said.
“Well, friends, that is called a constitutional crisis, and that is a crisis that will eventually impact everyone because it would mean that the rules that protect our fundamental rights and freedoms, that ensure each of us has a say about how our government works will no longer matter.”
She used a portion of her speech to point out Senators Cory Booker (D., N.J.) and Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), as well as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), as some examples of political figures who speak with “moral clarity” about the Trump administration.
Booker delivered a record-breaking 25-hour speech on the Senate floor, starting on March 31, to symbolically protest Trump’s policies. Van Hollen visited El Salvador in April to advocate for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant whom the Trump administration deported to the Central American country because of his alleged ties to MS-13.
Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez has held multiple rallies with Senator Bernie Sanders (I, Vt.) on an anti-Trump, anti-oligarchy platform with hopes to energize a defeated Democratic Party.
In her roughly 15-minute speech, Harris said she was inspired by the grassroots movement that led to Wisconsin supreme court justice-elect Susan Crawford’s electoral victory in early April.
Harris later offered a bizarre metaphor, describing a recent video in which a herd of elephants at the San Diego Zoo gathered in a circle to protect their young during a 5.2-magnitude earthquake shaking southern California.
“What a powerful metaphor because we know those who try to incite fear are most effective when they divide and conquer, when they separate the herd, when they try to make everyone think they are alone,” she said in closing.
“But in the face of crisis, the lesson is don’t scatter. The instinct has to be to immediately find and connect with each other and to know that the circle will be strong.”
The former vice president stepped away from the national stage following her departure from the White House in January, but she is weighing a potential return to politics in one form or another.
Harris is considering a 2026 run for California governor to replace the term-limited Gavin Newsom. She is expected to make her decision by the end of the summer. If not the gubernatorial race, Harris could potentially run for the presidency again in 2028.