Kamala Harris Slams Donald Trump In First Appearance As VP Choice, Says ‘America Is Crying For Leadership’

Kamala Harris slammed President Trump on Wednesday in her first public appearance as Joe Biden's running mate, criticizing the incumbent for his responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic downturn.

“America is crying out for leadership, yet we have a president who cares more about himself than the people who elected him, a president who is making every challenge we face even more difficult to solve,” the Democratic Senator from California said during a speech inside the gymnasium of DuPont High School in Wilmington, Delaware, near Biden’s home.

Harris also claimed Trump squandered the economy he inherited from the Obama administration.

"He inherited the longest economic expansion in history from Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And then, like everything else he inherited, he ran it straight into the ground," Harris said.

During his speech to introduce Harris, Biden said he had “no doubt” that he picked the right person to be his running mate.

“I have no doubt that I picked the right person to join me as the next vice president of the United States of America, and that is Sen. Kamala Harris,” Biden said. “She’s ready to do this job on day one. We’re both ready to get to work rebuilding this nation.”

During Biden’s address, he criticized Trump’s response to the white supremacist “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. He pledged to make racial justice a major priority as president.

“Remember what it felt like to see those neo-Nazis, those white supremacists coming out of the fields holding those torches, the veins bulging and pouring into the streets of an historic American city spewing the same vile things you heard in Hitler’s Germany?” Biden said, referring to the rally.

Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is the first Black woman on a presidential ticket.

Biden and Harris will accept their nominations during the Democratic National Convention next week.

Trump on Tuesday derisively called Harris his “No. 1 pick” to be Biden’s running mate. He has made false claims that Harris is in favor of “socialized medicine” and that she supports cutting funding for the military. He also called her “phony” and said she was “nasty” to his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Trump will accept the Republican nomination on Aug. 27.