Vice President Kamala Harris said Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump “wants to be a dictator” as she accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago on Thursday night.
“I will not go near tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong Un who support Trump,” Harris said.
“Because they know he is easily manipulated through flattery and favors,” the vice president said.
“They know Trump won’t hold dictators accountable because he wants to be a dictator,” Harris said of her Republican opponent.
“As President, I will never waver in protecting America’s security and ideals.”
Shortly after Harris made these remarks, Trump responded to her criticism in a social media post.
“Tyrants are laughing at her because she is weak, incompetent and has done nothing for 3 1/2 years except enable them to get stronger, richer and more powerful!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Harris offered sharp criticism of Trump’s praise of dictators and strongmen hostile to U.S. interests, building on a theme established earlier in the night.
The speaker list for Thursday’s convention included six veterans of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, who each portrayed Trump as a threat to national security and Harris as a staunch defender of American ideals.
“Tonight I want to talk about national security,” said Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democratic candidate running for U.S. Senate from Michigan this fall.
“The choice in November is clear: America can retreat from the world or lead the world. Trump wants to put us back,” said Slotkin, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst who worked with the military during three tours of duty in Iraq.
U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) speaks onstage 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 praises dictators, treats our friends as enemies and our enemies as friends.”
“We must not give in to these hypocrites who wear our flag and spit in the face of the freedom it stands for,” she said to thunderous applause.
“As president, President Trump has skipped intelligence briefings,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and astronaut.
“He was busy kowtowing to dictators and dreaming of becoming one himself,” Kelly said. “Trump thinks Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice are ‘idiots’ and ‘losers.’ If we fall for it again and make him commander in chief, the only fools will be us.”
Kelly also said the threats facing the US were too serious to risk Trump, “the laughing stock of the world,” serving another term in the White House.
Former Secretary of Defense and Director of the CIA Leon Panetta also issued a warning.
“Trump would abandon our allies and isolate the United States,” he said. “We tried to do that in the 1930s. It was foolish and dangerous then. It’s foolish and dangerous now.”
He also quoted former Republican President Ronald Reagan as saying, “Isolationism has never been, and never will be, an acceptable response to dictatorship.”
Unlike Reagan, “Trump is telling tyrants like Putin that they can ‘do whatever they want,'” he said.
“Donald Trump does not understand the world, and he does not understand the service and sacrifice of our military,” Panetta said.
“Fallen veterans are not stupid. They’re not losers. They’re heroes.”
