‘I represent a new generation of leadership’: Kamala Harris

PTI, Oct 17, 2024, 7:52 AM IST

Washington: US Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday said she represents the next generation of leadership and her presidency would be different from that of her boss President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump.

“My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency. Like every new president that comes in to office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership,” Harris said in an interview to Fox news channel. “I, for example, am someone who has not spent the majority of my career in Washington, D.C. I invite ideas, whether it be from the Republicans who are supporting me, who were just on stage with me minutes ago, and the business sector and others, who can contribute to the decisions that I make about,” she said.

“You’ve been vice president for three and a half years. So, what are you turning the page from?” she was asked.

“Well, first of all, turning the page from the last decade in which we have been burdened with the kind of rhetoric coming from Donald Trump that has been designed and implemented to divide our country and have Americans literally point fingers at each other; rhetoric and an approach to leadership that suggests that the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down instead of what we all know. The strength of leadership is based on who you lift up,” Harris asserted.

“The strength of an American president which is one who understands that the vast majority of us have more in common than what separates us. That is turning the page on rhetoric that People are frankly exhausted of,” she said.

Harris slammed her Republican rival Trump and said he is unfit to run for presidency.

“If he’s as bad as you say, that half of this country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States? Why is that happening?” she was asked.

“This is an election for president of the United States. It’s not supposed to be easy. It is not supposed to be a cakewalk for anyone…If you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he’s the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people. He’s the one who talks about an enemy within, an enemy within, talking about the American people suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people,” Harris said.