‘Our values are shared by Americans’
DEMOCRATIC vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris has said her party's views on issues like healthcare and the coronavirus pandemic are shared by a majority of Americans, flaying President Donald Trump for an utter failure of leadership and refusing to condemn white supremacy.
Deflecting President Trump's remarks, who described her as a female socialist, Harris, 56, said she and former vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, are proud American patriots.
‘Joe Biden and I are proud American patriots. And the reality is that the values that we have, I think, are shared by the majority of the American people,' Harris told reporters in Cleveland, where she was campaigning on Saturday.
She was responding to a question on Trump's statement a day earlier.
‘We're not going to be a socialist nation. We're not going to have a socialist president, especially a female socialist president. We're not going to have it. We're not going to put up with it,' Trump said at a rally in Pensacola, Florida on Friday.
‘When you look at what we all want in terms of knowing people have access to health care, especially in a pandemic ... he's trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, we're trying to expand it. Our values are about saying we need to lift up working people,' Harris said.
‘Meanwhile, Donald Trump measures the success of the economy based on how rich people are doing and how the stock market is doing,' she said.
Later addressing her supporters at Cuyahoga Community College, Harris talked about the crisis of systemic racism.
‘So we're in the midst of a public health crisis, an economic crisis, and a long overdue reckoning on racial injustice in America. And on this issue, let's be clear, again two very clear choices,' she said.
‘On the one hand you have Joe Biden, who has the courage and the commitment and the knowledge of America's history to speak the term Black Lives Matter. On the other hand you have a Donald Trump, who will never speak those words,' she said.
‘You have a Donald Trump who stood on that debate stage and refused to condemn white supremacists and then doubled down and said, 'Well, stand back and stand by.' And then people say, 'Well, you know do you think he's a racist?' Harris added.