SAN FRANCISCO — Kamala Harris returned to the national stage on Wednesday and issued a call to action, urging Americans to fight back against what she cast as President Donald Trump’s ruinous economic policies and assault on democracy.
The former vice president, in her most extensive comments since losing to Trump, excoriated his trade policies, defiance of federal court orders and push to slash spending for a host of federal programs.
“It’s an agenda, a narrow, self-serving vision of America where they punish truth tellers, favor loyalists, cash in on their power and leave everyone to fend for themselves,” she said Wednesday night. “All while abandoning allies and retreating from the world.”
Harris called Trump’s seesawing tariffs the “greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history,” blaming his policies for the rising cost of household goods, shrinking retirement accounts and a tightening job market. She warned that his tariffs are “clearly inviting a recession.”
She delivered her rebuke of Trump’s first 100 days to Democratic donors who filled a ballroom in San Francisco — the city where she launched her political career more than two decades ago. It marked her second public appearance within weeks in her home state as she mulls whether to run for California governor next year or seek the presidency again in 2028 after the bruising loss.
While her comments about Trump were biting, Harris’ speech bore many of the hallmarks of a conventional political address — down to the tightly choreographed delivery and poll-tested approach accusing Trump of not meaningfully improving the lives of everyday people. It included few new details about her vision for the party or the state and even fewer hints about her own political path forward.
Harris has kept a relatively low profile since leaving Washington, which has left political watchers dissecting every public move with Talmudic scrutiny. She vowed she was “not going anywhere” at a national conference of Black women in Orange County in early April.
She previously weighed in on a Wisconsin Supreme Court race that became a battle over Elon Musk’s influence in politics and made appearances at the NAACP Image Awards, Broadway shows and the occasional NBA game. On Easter weekend, she attracted a swell of cheering onlookers when she attended services at an Inglewood church, sending a potent signal of the loyalty she inspires among key Democratic constituencies.
Harris spoke Wednesday in a gilded ballroom at the Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco, the keynote speaker for a gala hosted by the Emerge America candidate training program that backs Democratic women. She expanded on her “courage is contagious” theme from a prior speech, encouraging Democrats to lock arms in opposing what she called the president’s unconstitutional power grab.
She lauded party leaders who have grabbed headlines in recent months, from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for drawing throngs of restive progressives to their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour to Cory Booker for his marathon Senate speech and Sen. Chris Van Hollen for leading the effort to bring Kilmar Abrego García back to the U.S., saying they “in different ways, have been speaking with moral clarity about this moment.”
Of the president and Republicans, Harris said, “They are counting on the notion that if they can make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others. What they’ve overlooked is that fear isn’t the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious.”
Harris said the country is entering a “constitutional crisis” and warned that “the checks and balances on which we have historically relied are beginning to buckle.”
Emerge America and Harris have long been aligned — her 2003 defeat of an incumbent San Francisco district attorney has been credited as a source of inspiration behind the group. Some of the leaders Harris has mentored most closely have also come through Emerge, including Rep. Lateefah Simon, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and former San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
Harris was greeted like a rock star with a roaring standing ovation from her hometown crowd. But how she plans to marshal that goodwill for her next act remains an open question.
Harris has given herself a deadline of late summer to decide whether she will run for California governor, seek the presidency again — or neither. Many state political insiders interpret her increasing visibility in the state as a sign she’ll jump into the governor’s race (even though many of those insiders have a decidedly blasé reaction to the prospect of her candidacy, according to a POLITICO-UC Berkeley Citrin Center poll).
Brian Brokaw, a consultant and former Harris aide who has remained close to her circle, said she will need to strike a tough balance: calling out Trump’s policies without relitigating the 2024 election. He said he expects Harris can pull it off, noting her knack for saying “just as much with a facial expression or a cleverly-timed pause.”
“There’s an art to recognizing where we are, reading the room and articulating a different vision,” Brokaw said, “and doing so in a way that doesn’t necessarily shame people for an election that is behind us.”
Harris looms large as a potential game-changer in the crowded governor’s race; former Rep. Katie Porter, one of the most prominent Democrats in the race, acknowledged Harris would have a “near field-clearing effect” that would push out other hopefuls from her party. While some contenders, such as Antonio Villaraigosa and Xavier Becerra, have said they’ll remain in the race no matter what, others have been quietly formulating back-up plans of other offices they could seek.
Meanwhile, major donors are largely keeping their powder dry as they wait for the field to settle, leading to a frozen fundraising landscape and candidates who are increasingly impatient for Harris to make up her mind.