Joe Biden appears with vice presidential running mate Kamala Harris for their first joint campaign press conference, Harris the first Black woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America.....Harris said that America "is experiencing a moral reckoning with racism and systemic injustice that has brought a new coalition of conscience to the streets of our country demanding change"....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest
WILMINGTON, Delaware-Former vice president and Democratic presumptive nominee Joe Biden and U.S. Sen Kamala Harris appeared at a campaign event together for the first time since Biden, on Tuesday, named Harris as his VP pick, the former state attorney general and junior senator from California becoming the first Black woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America.
Biden said his campaign has raised some $26 million in the day since Harris came aboard to his ticket, that figure 'a grassroots record," Biden said.
Pundits said that Harris' moving speech at a televised press conference with Biden on Wednesday in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden's home state, was both heart wrenching and policy-driven, and that it showed that she has evolved since her unsuccessful campaign for president last year.
Harris said she could not be prouder to represent Biden by his side, and she said that America " is experiencing a moral reckoning with racism and systemic injustice that has brought a new coalition of conscience to the streets of our country demanding change."
She discussed her prior working relationship with Biden's now deceased son, Beau Biden, the younger Biden Delaware's attorney general at the time, and Harris, California's attorney general, Harris saying that together they tackled greedy banks and mortgage companies, and foreclosure fraud.
She said the case against President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, both up for reelection in November is "open and shut."
She called the president incompetent and gave a litany of reasons as to why she says voters should oust Trump and Pence and vote the Democratic ticket
Before introducing her, and with the audience limited to a small mainstream media group, Biden, 77, gave one the best campaign speeches of his career, even his critics admitting that he too is more polished and presentable that he was on the campaign trial fighting to become the Democrats' nominee for president, Biden a former U.S. senator and vice president who served under former president Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president.
"The choice we make this November is going to decide the future of America for a very, very long time," said Biden. "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's Senator Kamala Harris."
Biden chastised Trump for branding Harris 'nasty' after it was announced she would be running for vice president on the Democratic ticket, and he took him on for a host of other racist or sexism comments the president has uttered since Harris, a frequent critic of the president, stepped up as political force determined to preclude his reelection bid.
Polls show Biden with at least a 5-10 point lead over the embattled president.
The former vice president highlighted that Aug 12 is the third-year anniversary of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia that saw White activist Heather Heyer murdered at the United the Right rally and said Trump's subsequent comments that both sides at the rally, even the White supremacists that precipitated the violence, were all good people, were ludicrous, and racist.
Biden said he had no reservations about selecting Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican Immigrants that the mainstream media also paint as a southeastern descendant of Asian descent.
Their respective spouses appeared with them on stage after both of them spoke, Biden's wife and possibly the nation's next first lady, Dr. Jill Biden, joining him by his side, and Harris' Jewish husband, Douglas Emhoff accompanying her, Emhoff a millionaire entertainment lawyer whom she married in 2014.
"This is a moment of real consequence in America," said Harris while looking trim, confident and vice presidential.
Harris and Biden took on a range of issues from voting and reproductive rights to Obamacare, climate change, civil and human rights, immigration and police reforms, and the Black Lives Matter Movement, Biden saying that jobs and the economy are key and Harris strategically outlining the flawed manner in which the Trump administration has responded to the coronavirus pandemic.
She blamed Trump for the heightened pandemic in the country.
The president did not hesitate to later respond.
During a White House press conference he held hours after the Biden-Harris campaign press conference Trump attacked Biden and Harris, and called Harris, who said his actions around the pandemic were irresponsible and contributed to thousands of American deaths, "weak on facts."
The president said that the national polls that show him losing to Biden are fake, like 'the fake news."
He said that he looks forward to the debate between Harris and Vice President Pence.
And he called Harris angry and mad, a racial stereotype often used by White men in an effort to subordinate strong Black women.
The only Black woman to seek the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, Harris is the fourth woman to compete on a major party presidential ticket in America behind vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin in 2008 and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and Hillary Clinton in 2016, Clinton a presidential candidate that year.
The Democratic National Convention, which Biden has said he will skip due to coronavirus concerns, begins Aug 17 in Milwaukee, less than three months before the Nov 3 presidential election.
Harris is slated to give the keynote speech at the convention, Democratic National Committee officials said Tuesday.
The daughter of Indian and Jamaica immigrants and a former California attorney general, Harris, 55, was selected among more than 20 women aspiring to become vice president that caught the former vice president's eye.
Biden promised to choose a female running-mate during the 11th Democratic Debate on March 15 in Washington, D.C as pressure subsequently mounted by Black leaders and Democrats, and even some mainstream media, for that woman to be a woman of color, preferably a Black woman.
Others on Biden's short list for vice president, most of them Black women, were U.S. Sen Tammy Duckworth, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Rep. Val Demings of Florida, former national security adviser Susan Rice, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep Karen Bass of California.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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