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Kamala Harris will step back into the political spotlight on Wednesday night to deliver a sharp critique of Donald Trump, warning that his presidency has put the US at risk of a constitutional crisis.
The former vice-president has mostly kept a low profile since leaving the White House in January following her bitter defeat to Trump. Now, a day after Trump celebrated 100 days in office with a rally in Michigan, she is expected to deliver a forceful renunciation of the president’s stunning power grabs that have prompted warnings of creeping authoritarianism.
In her remarks, Harris, 60, will warn of a looming constitutional crisis and urge Americans to collectively join the fight to protect rights and freedoms under threat by a president seeking unchecked powers, according to a person familiar with the content of her speech. She is expected to commend leaders whose dissent has galvanized the public, including Democratic senators Cory Booker, who delivered a record-breaking 25-hour speech to show resistance to Trump, and Chris Van Hollen, who secured a visit with a man wrongly deported to El Salvador by the administration.
She is also expected to emphasize that the chaos of Trump’s return to power is by design, laid out in the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025. During the campaign, Trump sought to distance himself from the unpopular initiative but his actions as president follow the plan closely – from his chainsaw approach to downsizing the federal government, to his war on diversity, equity and inclusion policies and “gender ideology”.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration fired Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff other senior Biden White House officials from the board that oversees the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Earlier this month, the law firm where Emhoff works reached a deal with the White House to avert an executive order targeting its practice. Emhoff was said to have advised against the agreement, and Harris in remarks days later, seemed to obliquely address the situation, warning that “we are seeing those that are capitulating to clearly unconstitutional threats”.
The remarks come as Harris is weighing her next move. The former state attorney general and US senator from California is expected to decide by the end of summer whether to join the crowded field of Democrats vying to succeed California’s term-limited governor, Gavin Newsom.
A successful campaign to lead the country’s largest blue state would give her a prominent platform from which to challenge Trump and his attacks on Democratic states. Or she could choose to mount another presidential campaign in 2028.
The former vice-president has continued fundraising through the Harris Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee her presidential campaign set up with the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic parties.
As Democrats search for a leader – and a path forward – after their devastating losses in November, many supporters have been eager to hear from Harris.
In intermittent remarks since January, Harris has encouraged Americans to prioritize their wellbeing while staying engaged in the fight to safeguard the rights and protections under threat by the new administration. But speaking to an audience of Black women at an event in southern California earlier this month, she sounded a more urgent tone: “There is a sense of fear that is taking hold in our country.”
Wednesday’s event serves as a poignant coda for Harris as she plots her next move. She is to deliver the keynote address at the 20th anniversary gala for Emerge America at the Palace hotel in San Francisco, celebrating its work recruiting and training Democratic women to run for office. The idea for the organization was born out of Harris’s campaign for San Francisco district attorney in 2002, when she defeated the incumbent and one-time boss.
“Vice-President Harris is the original Emerge woman,” A’shanti F. Gholar, president and CEO of Emerge, said in a statement. “She continues to be a champion for Emerge and an advocate for elevating women in elected office.”
