Former vice president Kamala Harris took direct aim at Donald Trump during a speech in San Francisco Wednesday evening, calling his administration “reckless” and “self-serving” while casting the White House as authoritarian and corrupt.
“What we are, in fact, witnessing is a high-velocity event. Where a vessel is being used for the swift implementation of an agenda that has been decades in the making,” said Harris, a Bay Area native and former U.S senator. “An agenda to slash public education. An agenda to shrink government. And then privatize its services. All while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us.”
Harris, who is mulling a run for California governor in 2026, said the president’s actions have not led to lower costs or a more affordable lifestyle, a key promise Trump made while on the campaign trail in 2024. She also criticized his tariff policy, which has led to a slump in the stock market and worries about a recession, calling it “the greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history.”
Referring to comments made by Trump in the Oval Office this month, where he explored the idea of sending criminals to El Salvador, Harris said it is “not OK to detain and disappear American citizens or anyone without due process.”
Her comments came during a keynote speech at an event held at the luxury Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco and marked her first major address — and pointed criticism of Trump — since losing the November presidential election.
The gathering commemorated the 20th anniversary of Emerge America, a group that tries to bring more Democratic women into elected office. Other speakers included former U.S. Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who is also running for a governor’s seat in Virginia, and Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin.
Harris is not the only Democratic official to take a swipe at the president in recent weeks. This month, former vice president Al Gore compared Trump’s political maneuvers to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Former president Barack Obama has also spoken out about themes of democracy, the rule of law, and an independent judiciary.
“One of the things that has distinguished us in the past has been this basic idea that we are a rules-based society,” Obama said during an event at Hamilton College. “What that means is that I can support one candidate instead of another and I don’t have to worry that the police are going to come harass me. That’s what happens in other places. That’s what happens in Russia.”