Vice President Kamala Harris joined talk-show host Oprah Winfrey on Thursday evening to rally voters and convince them that her “joy” campaign is worth supporting.
The event, “Unite for America,” gathered a studio audience in suburban Michigan, as well as multiple virtual guests, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lopez, Brian Cranston, and Julia Roberts. Win with Black Women, Childless Cat Ladies for Harris, White Dudes for Harris, and Swifties for Harris were also in attendance, to watch Winfrey and Harris discuss a number of policy issues, including immigration, inflation, and abortion.
When asked if she agreed with Winfrey’s characterization of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race — that a “veil dropped,” and Harris “stepped into her power” — Harris said, “We each have those moments in our lives when it’s time to step up.”
“I felt a sense of responsibility, to be honest with you, and with that comes a sense of purpose,” she said.
Harris and Winfrey discussed the vice president’s plan to lower the cost of living, which Harris said she’d do by cutting down on price-gouging. The Democrat told a young couple in the audience who expressed concern over their mortgage and rising grocery bills, “In terms of both rightly having the right to have aspirations and dreams and ambitions for your family and working hard and finding that the American dream is, for this generation and so many recently, far more elusive than it’s been.”
Winfrey also referenced the tragic case of Georgia resident Amber Nicole Thurman, who after obtaining chemical-abortion pills in North Carolina did not expel all of the fetal remains. Thurman received a dilation-and-curettage (D&C) procedure to remove the remaining fetal remains, suffered complications, and died. Although ProPublica published a sprawling article blaming Georgia’s pro-life heartbeat law for what the outlet reported was a “preventable” death, Georgia’s heartbeat act allows physicians to intervene in cases of medical emergencies. A D&C procedure is also not classified as an abortion in Georgia.
Harris nonetheless repeated that Thurman’s death was a “preventable” result of abortion bans that “criminalize health-care providers . . . for a doctor or nurse who provides health care.” She did not discuss chemical abortions, which have four times the complication rate of surgical abortions.
The vice president also said it was “immoral” for lawmakers to make decisions about abortion for women in cases of rape and incest. President Donald Trump supports exceptions for rape and incest.
On the show, the pair also discussed guns, and Harris stressed that she supports the Second Amendment and also a ban on assault rifles. Harris said during the recent presidential debate that both she and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, are gun owners. Although she claimed during the debate that “we’re not taking anybody’s guns away,” Harris had said in 2019 that she supported a “mandatory gun buyback program.”
“If somebody breaks in my house, they’re gettin’ shot,” she said in reference to her own gun, laughing. “I probably should not have said that. My staff will deal with that later.”