WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris on Thursday night attended a star-studded campaign event hosted by Oprah Winfrey, who was forced to nudge the vice president to get to the point during a rambling response to a policy question posed by the audience.
The two-hour “Unite for America” livestream event from Michigan was meant to highlight the grassroots organizers who are backing Harris and give voters an opportunity to ask her about her platform — but the Democratic presidential nominee didn’t offer any new policy proposals.
At one point in the evening, Harris was questioned about what she would do to secure the southern border.
“So it’s a wonderful and important question. I, you know, my background was as a prosecutor, and I was also the elected attorney general for two terms of the border state. So this is not a theoretical issue for me. This is something I’ve actually worked on,” Harris began in her three-minute answer, which ended with her blasting Republicans for not passing the bipartisan border bill.
“So to answer Justin’s question,” Winfrey interjected.
“Now that that bill is gone and hasn’t passed, will you introduce–” the billionaire talk show host asked before Harris cut in.
“Absolutely,” the vice president replied.
“When I am elected as president of the United States, I will make sure that bill gets to my desk and I will sign it into law,” Harris said, without offering any new policies on how to solve the crisis at the southern border.
The “Unite for America” event was meant to reach a large number of voters through Winfrey’s presence and a number of simultaneous streaming platforms on social media.
A wide list of celebrities like Chris Rock and Ben Stiller, who said they were voting for Harris, also tuned in to the event.
The 2024 Democratic nominee spoke at length about abortion, saying it’s “immoral” to say that a person has “no right to make a decision about what happens to their body” and being “violated.”
Harris also reiterated she would offer new homeowners $25,000 for their down payment, increase tax deductions for new small business owners and the child tax credit.
Winfrey, who endorsed Harris and delivered a speech at the Democratic National Convention a month ago, remarked that she has been more active and had more swagger since President Biden bowed out of the race.
“You know, we each have those moments in our lives where it’s time to step up,” Harris said of how she felt after Biden suspended his bid.
“I felt a sense of responsibility, to be honest with you, and with that comes a sense of purpose.”
Harris took one veiled hit at her opponent, former President Donald Trump, noting that “the beauty of a democracy, as long as we can hold on to it, the beauty of a democracy is each of us has the power.”
The vice president had six total media interviews before the livestream with Winfrey as a 2024 candidate — on track to be the fewest of any recent presidential nominee.
She also waited over a month to present a list of policy proposals, but has said that she’s “not Joe Biden” and that “we can’t go back” to Trump.
Her campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon admitted the race against Trump was close and urged voters to turn out.
“While we have this extraordinary growing enthusiasm that the vice president and [running mate Minnesota] Governor [Tim] Walz are seeing everywhere, we are still in a margin of error rates. It’s tied,” she said.
“It’s tied right here in Michigan. It’s tied in all the battleground states. So it’s going to take all of us to build a pathway, many pathways, to 270 electoral votes. That’s what we’re focused on.”
