Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris has launched her 2020 presidential bid on Sunday with a scathing criticism of President Donald Trump’s policies, saying that the US is at an “inflection point” in the history due to the attack on democracy like never before.
Harris, 54, who was elected to the Senate in 2016, announced her run for presidency last week. She has been voted on top of the list of Democratic leaders aspiring to defeat Trump in the November 2020 election.
Harris, the second African-American woman elected to the US senate, has drawn comparisons to Barack Obama since early in her political career.
“We are at an inflection point in the history of our nation. We are here because the American dream and our American democracy are under attack and on the line like never before,” she said.
“When we have leaders who bully and attack a free press and undermine our democratic institutions, that’s not our America,” she said, without mentioning Trump’s name.
She criticised “the arrogance of power” she saw in wealthy bank executives after the foreclosure crisis, and said that Americans needed to be honest about the country’s problems with racism, sexism, anti-semitism and transphobia.
She also emphasised unity, praising “the amazing spirit of the American people” and pledging her desire to be a president, echoing former president Abraham Lincoln’s famous words, “Of the people, by the people, and for all people.”