Declaring this midterm election year an "inflection point" in American history, Kamala Harris came Friday to South Carolina to tell Democrats that the way out of Donald Trump's America is through the ballot box.
The California senator may have been referring to Nov. 6 elections, but her surroundings — the state that hosts the first Southern presidential primary — also carried the air of another election year: 2020.
Harris demurred when asked about her looming decision on a White House bid. Still, she brought a message that could transition easily should she join what is expected to be a crowded Democratic presidential field.
"This is a moment that is really requiring us as a country, as individuals to look in the mirror and to collectively answer a question: Who are we?" she said, later adding, "This is a moment in time that is requiring us to fight for the best of who we are."
She bemoaned GOP efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, blasted the Republican tax law as a giveaway to the rich and skewered unnamed interests trying to sow "hatred and division" in America. But the former prosecutor invoked the language of the legal profession to "reject the premise" that the U.S. is as divided as it often appears.
"The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us. ... Let's speak that truth," she told party activists who later serenaded her with "Happy Birthday." Harris turns 54 on Saturday.
It delighted the Democratic partisans Harris greeted at get-out-the-vote rallies and a campaign phone bank, particularly women who said they were looking for a younger nominee to do what Hillary Clinton could not in 2016.
"She's fresh, she's new — and she has the optimism, the youth, the vigor," said Denise Scotti-Smith, a Democratic precinct captain in the upstate town of Simpsonville.
Harris is among several potential Democratic presidential contenders in the state this week. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker on Friday finished a two-day swing that included stops around Columbia and in Charleston. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the Democratic nomination in 2016, is scheduled to be in the state Saturday. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was here Thursday. Former Vice President Joe Biden campaigned for South Carolina Democrats last weekend.
South Carolina has proven critical in Democratic politics, offering the first opportunity for would-be president to face a significant number of black voters. Harris and Booker are the only two black Democratic senators. (South Carolina's Tim Scott is the Senate's lone black Republican.) .
The state helped propel both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to the 2008 and 2016 nominations, respectively.
Harris acknowledged the importance of black voters in South Carolina and Democratic politics generally. The senator compared current national tensions to the civil rights era, describing her parents as active in that movement. She quipped that voters "can honor the ancestors with absentee ballots," rather than waiting until Election Day.
Yet she seemed to carefully calibrate her message to a wide audience.
"Leaders should be able to see all of the people who we represent and see them equally," she told reporters, later adding regardless of race or geography, "some of the issues are the same issues, because frankly the values are the same, and the challenges are the same for families, especially working families."
That offered some contrast to Booker, who at multiple stops Thursday emphasized his personal and political ties within the black community.
Harris did not bring up her recent appearances — and Booker's — on the national stage during the Senate Judiciary Committee's consideration of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation.
But several women thanked her for how she handled Christine Blasey Ford's allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh. Harris said from the outset she believed Ford's account that Kavanaugh assaulted her when they were in high school. Kavanaugh vehemently denied the accusation.
Bridgette Watson, 33, shed tears as she met with Harris. "I just appreciate so much that she treated Dr. Ford with respect," Watson told The Associated Press afterward, describing herself as a sexual assault survivor. "The way she addressed her was empowering for women who have never told their stories. ... I didn't tell mine until this year."
Harris said she has experienced many such encounters since the Ford-Kavanaugh hearings, despite Kavanaugh's eventual confirmation. "People who might have said hello (to me) are now telling (me) their story," she said. Other don't share details, Harris added, "but they are communicating 1,000 words without explicitly saying it."
At a black church in Columbia, two white Harris backers, Susan Riordan, 54, and Katy Beverly, 46, noted the racial mix of the crowd, arguing that it shows Harris can build a wide coalition.
Riordan noted an obvious comparison to the last time Democrats nominated a first-term senator that drew similar crowds. "There's a reason that Barack Obama ran only two years into office," she said. "Once you get into Washington, you get twisted by Washington."
So, Riordan said: "It's time. This is her time."
Follow Barrow and Kinnard on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP and https://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP .
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia on Wednesday vetoed a U.N. resolution sponsored by the United States and Japan calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space, calling it “a dirty spectacle” that cherry picks weapons of mass destruction from all other weapons that should also be banned.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13 in favor, Russia opposed and China abstaining.
The resolution would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under a 1967 international treaty that included the U.S. and Russia, and to agree to the need to verify compliance.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the vote that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space.
“Today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them? What could you possibly be hiding,” she asked. “It’s baffling. And it’s a shame.”
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the resolution as “absolutely absurd and politicized,” and said it didn’t go far enough in banning all types of weapons in space.
Russia and China proposed an amendment to the U.S.-Japan draft that would call on all countries, especially those with major space capabilities, “to prevent for all time the placement of weapons in outer space, and the threat of use of force in outer spaces.”
The vote was 7 countries in favor, 7 against, and one abstention and the amendment was defeated because it failed to get the minimum 9 “yes” votes required for adoption.
The U.S. opposed the amendment, and after the vote Nebenzia addressed the U.S. ambassador saying: “We want a ban on the placement of weapons of any kind in outer space, not just WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). But you don’t want that. And let me ask you that very same question. Why?”
He said much of the U.S. and Japan’s actions become clear “if we recall that the U.S. and their allies announced some time ago plans to place weapons … in outer space.”
Nebenzia accused the U.S. of blocking a Russian-Chinese proposal since 2008 for a treaty against putting weapons in outer space.
Thomas-Greenfield accused Russia of undermining global treaties to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, irresponsibly invoking “dangerous nuclear rhetoric,” walking away from several of its arms control obligations, and refusing to engage “in substantive discussions around arms control or risk reduction.”
She called Wednesday’s vote “a real missed opportunity to rebuild much-needed trust in existing arms control obligations.”
Thomas-Greenfield’s announcement of the resolution on March 18 followed White House confirmation in February that Russia has obtained a “troubling” anti-satellite weapon capability, although such a weapon is not operational yet.
Putin declared later that Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space, claiming that the country has only developed space capabilities similar to those of the U.S.
Thomas-Greenfield said before the vote that the world is just beginning to understand “the catastrophic ramifications of a nuclear explosion in space.”
It could destroy “thousands of satellites operated by countries and companies around the world — and wipe out the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial, and national security services we all depend on,” she said.
The defeated draft resolution said “the prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security.” It would have urged all countries carrying out activities in exploring and using outer space to comply with international law and the U.N. Charter.
The draft would have affirmed that countries that ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty must comply with their obligations not to put in orbit around the Earth “any objects” with weapons of mass destruction, or install them “on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space.”
The treaty, ratified by some 114 countries, including the U.S. and Russia, prohibits the deployment of “nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in orbit or the stationing of “weapons in outer space in any other manner.”
The draft resolution emphasized “the necessity of further measures, including political commitments and legally binding instruments, with appropriate and effective provisions for verification, to prevent an arms race in outer space in all its aspects.”
It reiterated that the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, based in Geneva, has the primary responsibility to negotiate agreements on preventing an arms race in outer space.
The 65-nation body has achieved few results and has largely devolved into a venue for countries to voice criticism of others’ weapons programs or defend their own. The draft resolution would have urged the conference “to adopt and implement a balanced and comprehensive program of work.”
At the March council meeting where the U.S.-Japan initiative was launched, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “geopolitical tensions and mistrust have escalated the risk of nuclear warfare to its highest point in decades.”
He said the movie “Oppenheimer” about Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the U.S. project during World War II that developed the atomic bomb, “brought the harsh reality of nuclear doomsday to vivid life for millions around the world.”
“Humanity cannot survive a sequel to Oppenheimer,” the U.N. chief said.
United States Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield addresses members of the U.N. Security Council before voting during a meeting on Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
FILE - U.S. Ambassador to United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks on Thursday, April 18, 2024, in Tokyo. The U.N. Security Council is set to vote Wednesday, April 24, 2024, on a resolution announced by Thomas-Greenfield, calling on all nations to prevent a dangerous nuclear arms race in outer space. It is likely to be vetoed by Russia. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, Pool, File)
