Advertisement
Vice President Kamala Harris released her first video promoting her presidential candidacy on Thursday — just days after President Biden withdrew from the race and she had garnered enough support to become the presumptive nominee. The video is titled “We Choose Freedom” and features the song “Freedom” by Beyonce, which is also Harris’ walkout song at events.
While Beyonce has yet to officially endorse the vice president, a source familiar with Beyonce confirmed that Beyonce’s team has given the campaign permission to use the song. The video also features narration by the vice president himself and is being promoted on the campaign’s social media platforms.
In it, Harris lays out her priorities as her campaign races to reintroduce Harris to the American people as the Democratic presidential nominee. She also launches into a blistering attack on former President Donald Trump. But conspicuously absent from the twenty-minute mark of the video is any mention of President Biden or images of the two of them together.
“In this election, we all face a question,” Harris says in the video. “What kind of country do we want to live in?” “There are people who think we should be a country of chaos, fear, and hate, but we, we choose something different. We choose freedom,” she continues.
The video opens with footage of an American flag and Harris supporters waving “Kamala” signs at her rally in Milwaukee on Tuesday. It then cuts to ominous footage of Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance. Later in the video, Harris calls for a future where “no one is above the law.”
At that point, it shows a photo of Trump’s arrest citation from his Georgia election interference case, as well as headlines from when Trump was indicted and found guilty on 34 counts of corporate falsification in New York. Harris has taken on Trump in her speeches. At her first rally, she praised prosecuting predators and said Trump is one. She talked about going after fraudsters and criticized Trump for committing fraud.
While the new video features footage of Trump, it does not mention the Republican presidential nominee by name and, aside from the pointed lines, is a more optimistic introduction to the Democratic nominee. The video relies heavily on footage of Harris supporters holding signs and cheering from Harris’ first campaign rally with voters as a presidential candidate.
The Milwaukee event drew 3,000 people in the key swing state, including pride flags, families, construction workers and doctors. “The freedom to not just survive, but to thrive. The freedom to be safe from gun violence. The freedom to make decisions about your own body,” Harris said.
She calls for a future “where no child lives in poverty” and “where we can all afford health care.” It ends with Harris’s rallying cry, the one she’s used enthusiastically on the campaign trail. “We believe in the promise of America, and we’re willing to fight for it,” she says. “Because when we fight, we win.”
While the campaign’s first video was released on social media, it has yet to place any television political ad buys featuring the vice president. The campaign is, however, advertising digitally. The same day Biden withdrew from the race, it began running digital ads promoting the president’s endorsement of Harris and encouraging supporters to fundraise for her presidential bid. In just over 24 hours, Harris’ campaign raised more than $100 million from more than 1.1 million donors.