Former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign rolled out its first ad Wednesday touting its pick of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) to be his running mate one day after the newly announced Democratic ticket.
The nearly two-minute video, posted to social media, features the conversation between Biden and Harris in which Harris accepted the job as Biden’s No. 2 and underscores the California lawmaker’s upbringing and rise in politics.
“I was raised to take action. My mother knew that she was raising two Black daughters who would be treated differently because of how they looked,” Harris says in the clip. “Growing up, whenever I got upset about something, my mother would look me in the eye and ask, ‘So what are you going to do about it?’”
“That’s why when I saw a broken justice system, I became a lawyer to try and fix it. It’s why during the foreclosure crisis, I took on the big banks as California’s attorney general. It’s why as United States senator, I have fought to represent people like my mother,” she added. “People who politicians often overlook or don’t take seriously. Right now, America needs action.”
In the video, Harris goes on to pan President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus and national protests over systemic racism that were sparked by George Floyd’s death in May, arguing Biden is the right candidate to properly address these issues.
“In the middle of a pandemic, the president is trying to rip away health care. While small businesses closed, he’s given breaks to his wealthy donors. And when the people cried out for support, he tear gassed them,” she said. “America is in a crisis, and I know Joe Biden will lead us out of it. He’s a man of faith, decency and character.”
Biden ended months of speculation Tuesday when he announced Harris would be his running mate, making the California Democrat the first African American and Indian American woman to appear on a major party’s presidential ticket.
“Her record of accomplishment — fighting tooth and nail for what’s right — is why I’m choosing her. There is no door Kamala won’t knock on, no stone she’ll leave unturned, if it means making life better — for the people,” he said in an email to supporters announcing his highly anticipated pick.
Trump and his campaign have swiftly moved to attack Harris, releasing a statement and a new ad hammering her almost immediately after Tuesday’s announcement.
“Voters rejected Harris. They smartly spotted a phony,” a narrator says in the new attack ad. “But not Joe Biden. He’s not that smart. He’s called himself a transition candidate.”
Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, called Harris Biden’s “political living will” in a statement and said she would “try to bury her record as a prosecutor, in order to appease the anti-police extremists controlling the Democrat Party.”