(CNN) — Former Vice President Kamala Harris rebuked President Donald Trump in her first major speech since leaving office, accusing her former rival of setting off the “greatest man-made economic crisis” in modern history through his across-the-board tariffs, and warning that his conflicts with the courts were moving the nation toward a constitutional crisis.
Harris spoke Wednesday evening at the Emerge Gala in San Francisco, benefitting an organization that supports women interested in entering politics. The 2024 Democratic presidential nominee marked the first 100 days of the second Trump administration during her address, saying that “instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals.”
“And what we are also seeing in these last 14 weeks is Americans using their voice and showing their courage,” Harris added.
The former vice president delivered a series of attacks on the administration, blaming Trump for the economic turbulence caused by the tariffs he has imposed on goods imported from major trading partners.
Harris called Trump’s tariffs “reckless” and said, “as I predicted,” they are “clearly inviting a recession.”
Harris said those import taxes will “hurt workers and families by raising the cost of everyday essentials, devastate their retirement accounts that people spent a lifetime paying into, and paralyze American businesses, large and small, forcing them to lay off people.”
Trump has said the across-the-board tariffs are meant to correct a trade imbalance with other countries and restore US manufacturing jobs. However, the administration’s policy changes have rocked global markets and added to mounting economic pressure on the US economy. Official data released Wednesday showed the economy contracted in the first quarter by 0.3%.
Harris told Democrats there is a method behind the break-neck pace of policy rollouts of the Trump administration, calling the president a “vessel” of a much larger conservative project.
“Friends, please, let us not be duped into thinking everything is chaos. I know it may feel that way, but understand, what we are in fact witnessing is a high velocity event where a vessel is being used for the swift implementation of an agenda that has been decades in the making,” the former vice president said.
The path forward for Harris and the Democratic Party
Harris’ speech on Wednesday comes at an inflection point for the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, with weighty questions about both her own path forward and that of her party.
In the wake of last year’s loss, Harris and her team began debating her next steps, considering another run for president in 2028, or a return to her home state for a 2026 gubernatorial run. Notably, Harris’ public address on Wednesday took place in California. “It’s wonderful to be home,” Harris said during her speech.
Harris’ advisors believe that getting into the governor’s race would require making her intentions clear at the latest by the summer of 2025, but she faces some pressure to make a decision soon – that contest is heating up, with Democratic former Rep. Katie Porter, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, and several other prominent contenders having already launched campaigns.
Whether she enters the California race as a heavy favorite, or holds out for the 2028 presidential primary, a less certain proposition, Harris’ remarks Wednesday also reflect a deliberate reemergence, months after her defeat, as Democrats look for leadership amid the turbulence of the new Trump administration.
As she lambasted the Trump administration Wednesday night for attempting to “divide and conquer,” Harris urged Democrats to stay together.
She also highlighted several lawmakers across the party’s ideological spectrum who she said have “in different ways have been speaking with moral clarity about this moment.” Harris named New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“I am not here tonight to offer all the answers. But I am here to say this: You are not alone, and we are all in this together,” Harris said. “And straight talk: Things are probably going to get worse before they get better,” she said. “But we are ready for it. We are not going to scatter. We are going to stand together, everyone a leader.”
Returning to the public eye
For Harris, the speech was part of a slow return to the public eye after leaving office in January.
The former vice president is slated to do a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in New York City on Tuesday, per a source who received an invitation. In recent months, Harris has also been regularly soliciting funds for the committee using the extensive email list she helped develop during the 2024 campaign.
Earlier this month, Harris began ramping up her public criticism of her former rival, appearing at the Leading Women Defined Summit, also in California, to share her misgivings about the course of events since Trump’s inauguration. “There were many things we knew would happen,” Harris said in a video of her remarks. “I’m not here to say I told you so,” she added before laughing.
Harris’ speech Wednesday included sober warnings about the potential for a “constitutional crisis” as she suggested that checks and balances within the government had begun to “buckle” amid the administration’s clashes with the courts.
“We are living in a moment where the checks and balances on which we have historically relied have begun to buckle,” Harris. “And we here know that when the checks and balances ultimately collapse, if Congress fails to do its part, or if the courts fail to do their part, or if both do their part but the president defies them anyway – well friends that is called a constitutional crisis. And that is a crisis that will eventually impact everyone.”
She added, “The one check, the one balance, the one power that must not fail is the voice of the people.”
From immigration fights to defending President Trump’s federal government cutbacks, the Justice Department has responded to more than a hundred emergency lawsuits in the first hundred days, in some case clashing publicly with judges as the administration lays out an expansive view of executive authority.
Harris’ condemnation of the administration Wednesday – her most direct comments this year – adds to an increasingly crowded Democratic chorus. Several other prominent party members have been active during Harris’ quiet period, taking advantage of the leadership vacuum to elevate their national profiles, some with an eye toward 2028.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has been touring the country with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in an attempt to galvanize the party’s progressive base around fighting “oligarchy”; California Gov. Gavin Newsom has sparred with far-right leaders on his new podcast in an effort to broaden Democratic messaging; and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker traveled to the early-voting state of New Hampshire and accused parts of his own party of “simpering timidity” in the face of Trump’s sweeping early actions.
Meanwhile, Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has been publicly reflecting on lessons learned from the ticket’s loss last year. And Walz also spoke to the delicate balance of setting the stage for the 2028 presidential race during an appearance earlier this week at Harvard University.
“If people think you’re hungry for the office rather than the moment that we’re in and the fighting of this, I think they’re going to bury you. I think people are like, not very patient right now for the politics as usual,” Walz said.