Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump is relying on support from billionaires and big corporations, while hers is a people powered campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris said Tuesday addressing her first election rally, a day after she became the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.
"Donald Trump is relying on support from billionaires and big corporations. He is trading access in exchange for campaign contributions. A couple months ago, you all saw that, at Mar-a-Lago, he literally promised big oil companies, big oil lobbyists, he would do their bidding for $1 billion in campaign donations," Harris, 59, said in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
"On the other hand, we are running a people-powered campaign. We just had some breaking news. We just had the best 24 hours of grassroots fundraising in presidential campaign history. Because we are a people-powered campaign, that is how you know we will be a people-first presidency," Harris said addressing her maiden campaign rally, less than 50 hours after she entered the race after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
"This campaign is also about two different visions for our nation. One, where we are focused on the future. focused on the past. We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead," she said amidst cheers from the audience.
"A future where no child has to grow up in poverty, where every worker has the freedom to join a union, where every person has affordable health care, affordable childcare, and paid family leave. We believe in a future where every senior can retire with dignity. So, all of this is to say building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency. Because here's the thing: we are all here. When our middle class is strong, America is strong," she said.
Harris alleged that Trump wants to take the country backward.
"He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. Like we know we got to take this seriously. …Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare. He intends to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and make working families foot the bill," Harris said.
"They intend to end the Affordable Care Act and take us back then to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with pre-existing conditions. Remember what that was like? Children with asthma, women who survived breast cancer, grandparents with diabetes. America has tried these failed economic policies before, but we are not going back.. And I'll tell you why we're not going back," she said.
"Because ours is a fight for the future. It is fight for freedom. Generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom. And now, Wisconsin, the baton is in our hands. We, who believe in the sacred freedom to vote. We'll make sure every American has the ability to cast their ballot and have it counted," Harris said.
"We, who believe that every person in our nation should have the freedom to live safe from the terror of gun violence, will finally pass red flag laws, universal background checks, and an assault weapons ban. We, who believe in reproductive freedom, will stop Donald Trump's extreme abortion bans because we trust women to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do," she said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
