Harris warns US democracy under ‘profound’ threat in Martin Luther King Jr Day speech

‘Freedom is never truly won. You earn it and win it in every generation,’ vice president says, quoting Coretta Scott King,

Vice President Kamala Harris warned that US democracy is under threat in her Martin Luther King Jr Day speech in South Carolina just hours ahead of the Republican Iowa caucuses.

Ms Harris attended an event hosted by the NAACP, the oldest civil rights group in the country, on Monday. She pushed the notion that motivated President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and his attempt to get re-elected alongside Ms Harris – that voters need to turn out for Democrats to stop Republicans from cracking down on their rights.

Pointing to Roe v Wade being overturned and handing the issue of reproductive rights back to the states, in effect removing access to abortion for millions, Ms Harris said American freedom is under “profound threat”. She also cited long lines to vote as well as widespread gun violence.

“Freedom is never truly won. You earn it and win it in every generation,” she said, quoting Coretta Scott King, Dr King’s widow. Ms King, an author as well as a civil rights leader, died in 2006.

Ms Harris added that voters have to “roll up our sleeves” and that “we were born for a time such as this,” according to Reuters.

“We will fight,” the vice president said. “And when we fight we win.”

Some protesters waved Palestinian flags before her speech, showing their dismay at the Biden administration’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The chair of the Republican Party in Iowa, Jeff Kaufman, claimed that the state is honouring Dr King tonight as they are “exercising true grassroots democracy,” in reference to the caucuses – the first-in-the-nation contest in the GOP presidential primary.

Meanwhile, Mr Biden and other senior Democrats, as well as a few Republicans, have noted that Mr Trump is a threat to democracy, pointing to the January 6 insurrection, his promise to go after adversaries, and his suggestions that he may pick apart American democratic institutions and customs if he wins in November.

Mr Trump, for his part, has instead argued that it’s Mr Biden who’s a threat to democracy, claiming that the four indictments and 91 criminal counts against him are a political witchhunt, despite there being no evidence that Mr Biden has directed the Department of Justice to target Mr Trump. Mr Biden’s own son Hunter is facing prosecution from the department on tax and gun charges.

Mr Biden told Rev Al Sharpton on SiriusXM that Mr Trump “is just saying things that are off the wall”. The president also said that Mr Trump’s possible return was one of the reasons he decided to run for re-election, pointing to Mr Trump’s willingness to go after those he feels have wronged him.