Vice President Kamala Harris said Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump “wants to be an autocrat,” as she accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago on Thursday night.
“I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-Un, who are rooting for Trump,” said Harris.
“Because they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors,” the vice president said.
“They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable — because he wants to be an autocrat,” Harris said of her Republican opponent.
“As President, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals.”
Shortly after Harris delivered these lines, Trump replied to her critique in a social media post.
“The Tyrants are laughing at her, she’s weak and ineffective, and for three and a half years she has done nothing except enabled them to get STRONG, RICH, and POWERFUL!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Harris’ sharp criticism of Trump’s well documented admiration for dictators and autocrats hostile to U.S. interests built on a theme established earlier in the night.
The convention’s speaker list on Thursday included a half-dozen veterans of the American military and intelligence community. One by one, they portrayed Trump as a threat to national security, and Harris as a staunch defender of America’s ideals.
“I want to talk tonight about national security,” said Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, the Democratic nominee for a Senate seat from that state this fall.
“Because the choice in November is stark: America retreating from the world, or leading the world. Trump wants to take us backwards,” said Slotkin, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst who worked alongside the military during three tours in Iraq.
U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) speaks on stage during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 22, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
“He admires dictators, treats our friends as adversaries, and our adversaries as friends.”
“Don’t give an inch to pretenders who wrap themselves in the flag, but spit in the face of the freedoms it represents,” she said to wide applause.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and astronaut, said, “As president, Trump skipped his intelligence briefings.”
“He was too busy sucking up to dictators and dreaming of becoming one himself,” Kelly said. “Trump thinks Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice are ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’ If we fall for it again, and make him commander-in-chief, the only suckers would be us.”
Kelly also said that the threats the United States faces are too serious to risk another term in the White House for Trump, who “the world laughs at.”
Leon Panetta, a former secretary of defense and director of the CIA, also issued a warning.
“Trump would abandon our allies and isolate America,” he said. “We tried that in the 1930s. It was foolish and dangerous then. It is foolish and dangerous now.”
He also quoted Republican former President Ronald Reagan, who said, “Isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments.”
Unlike Reagan, “Trump tells tyrants like Putin they can do ‘whatever the hell they want.'”
“Donald Trump does not understand the world. And he does not understand the service and sacrifice of our military,” said Panetta.
“Our fallen veterans aren’t suckers. They are not losers. They are heroes.”