Former Vice President Kamala Harris criticized President Donald Trump and urged Democrats to reclaim Congress during Thursday’s Washington, D.C., stop of her 107 Days book tour.
The event was scheduled to start at 7 p.m., and the line to enter snaked around the block ahead of doors opening at 6 p.m., causing long wait times.
Moderator Kara Swisher came on the stage 20 minutes late, and a video recounting Harris’s 2024 campaign played. Then, Harris came out to a sold-out crowd at Warner Theatre. The two discussed a range of topics, including the government shutdown, her presidential campaign, and the future of the Democratic Party.
A conversation with Kamala Harris
The event began with Harris opening the discussion with a profanity-laced remark about the Trump administration, setting an intense tone for the evening.
Swisher started by recalling a conversation she had with Harris right before taking the stage about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warning that boys who were circumcised were twice as likely to be diagnosed with autism later.
Harris said her mother was a scientist and that she can’t laugh about the Trump administration’s actions regarding science.
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Then she said, “It’s f***ed up,” and the crowd erupted in cheers.
“What they are doing to push misinformation and lies at the highest level of government, it’s criminal, and people will die because of what they’re doing. I can’t laugh about that. I’m sorry,” Harris said.
Swisher questioned the former vice president on excerpts from her book and current events, including the recent indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James.
When asked if she worries about being indicted or targeted by the Trump administration, Harris said, “Sure, of course.”
Harris told the audience she doesn’t “know that it won’t get worse before it gets better.”
“Every day, something is coming out of this White House. And I said that yesterday in Atlanta, and then [James’s indictment] today — I’m serious. I said it yesterday. I said it the day before. Every day I have been on this book tour, and every single day something happens.”
Trump and the government shutdown
“Whatever he’s doing is for his own well-being and to take care of himself,” Harris said about Trump. “Let’s be clear about that. Let’s be clear about what he is doing to monetize this presidency for himself. But this conman happens to be president of the United States, making decisions that are, in such a tremendous way, injuring the people of our nation.”
During the conversation, Harris referenced a line she wrote in the book about all the “guardrails” failing to protect democracy against the Trump administration’s actions. She also discussed the Trump v. United States case, in which the Supreme Court found that former presidents have criminal immunity for official actions taken while in office but not for private or unofficial acts.
Swisher asked Harris what people can do if there are no guardrail protections, and Harris said that Democrats need to win the midterm elections.
“We can reinvest in the three coequal branches of government and hope that where the courts fail, if it goes to the highest court, that we, at least at another branch, have a Congress,” she said.
“But we can also see that we’ve had complicit legislators who are Republicans and know what is wrong about this and are not stepping up,” Harris added.
Swisher asked Harris what her former colleagues in the Senate are telling her, and she said there are Republicans who believe they are doing the wrong thing but aren’t “speaking up.”
“I do believe there are a lot of people who know what’s wrong with this, don’t agree with it, even though they vote a certain way, but they are living in fear of retribution and more invested in their own political survival than speaking up and taking the hits that might come,” Harris said.
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Harris praised her former Democratic colleagues in the Senate for standing firm during the government shutdown, which began after Congress failed to pass more funding earlier this month.
“I look right now at what my former colleagues in the Senate are doing, and I praise them for having the ability to say that we are not going to compromise affordable healthcare for the American [people],” Harris said. “I know there are plenty of Republicans who know this is wrong, but they’re not stepping up.”
Regarding how Democrats can combat the administration, Harris said the party needs to “chew gum and walk at the same time” by criticizing the administration and addressing the immediate problems for the public, including the cost of goods.
“We have to continue to highlight the corruption and the, literally, the violation of rule of law and all of the essence and spirit behind rule of law and Constitution of the United States — free speech, free association, just freedom period,” she said.
“We also have to emphasize what our plan is immediately for bringing down the cost of everyday life, and all of those things have to happen at the same time,” Harris said.
The political future, including her own
Halfway through, Swisher revealed that she had a surprise guest. It was a prerecorded video of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking Harris about debating Trump.
“No doubt, he’s unhinged, and I, and Secretary Clinton did the work in her debates of demonstrating that, as I attempted to do in my debate with him, we have in this president, the most, one of the most callous, corrupt, and incompetent individual,” Harris said.
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Harris also revealed that part of her “dilemma” is she doesn’t have a solution for combating this administration.
“I don’t have the solution right now to how it stops before the end of his term, but I know that we have to fight,” Harris said. “We have to fight. We cannot get used to this. We cannot be overwhelmed. We cannot be silenced.”
During the conversations about the future and the stars of the Democratic Party, Harris gave a shoutout to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. The audience erupted in applause, and the theater spotlighted Scott, who waved to the crowd.
Harris also highlighted Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), and Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) as stars, saying they are “for the people, looking out for the people.”
When it came to her own future and whether she’d run again in 2028, Harris said, “maybe, maybe not,” but that Democrats will need to invent and rebuild following Trump’s term.
“When this administration is done, there’s going to be a lot of broken stuff and part of what I write about is when it comes time then to be about rebuilding and hopefully transformation,” she said.
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Beyond 107 Days
Simon & Schuster announced last month that 107 Days is on track to be its bestseller this year. The 15-city book tour has already taken Harris across the country to Los Angeles, Atlanta, and New York City. This is the second time the former vice president has returned to Washington following Trump’s inauguration.
Harris said she wrote it to remind her supporters of a “sense of optimism” that was felt throughout her campaign.
“Part of what I hope this book does, and these conversations do, is just allow us all to see the community in which we gather today and remind ourselves that we’re all in this,” Harris said. “We feel the same way.”
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“We’re not crazy, but we have to remember that, because, to your point, three years, we have three more years of this,” she added.
The event ended with Harris doing her call-and-response cheer from her campaign: “When we fight, we win.”
The next book tour stop is in Chicago on Saturday, Oct. 11.
