Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a speech Friday at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) 39th Annual Conference in which she struggled to convey a coherent affirmation about the future of abortion, saying that “we are guided by what we see that can be, unburdened by what has been.”
Speaking about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Harris said that the “great aspiration of our nation has been to expand freedom. … But the expansion of freedom clearly is not inevitable, and it certainly is not something that just happens.”
Harris, continuing to speak about overcoming political opposition, which she dubbed “odds and the obstacles,” tried to deliver an inspirational line to the audience about overcoming the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“We push to move forward; that we are guided by what we see that can be, unburdened by what has been,” she stated, with no applause forthcoming. “And I know everyone in this room understands this,” she claimed.
It is not the first time the vice president has struggled to deliver a speech. Sometimes her remarks are unclear and hard to follow, supplying regular communication blunders that have beset Harris’s communications team with challenges.
Speaking alongside Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness in March, Harris struggled to convey that the United States would be providing economic assistance to the island nation. “We also recognize — just as it has been in the United States for Jamaica — one of the issues that has been presented as an issue that is economic in the way of its impact has been the pandemic,” she said.
“So to that end,” Harris continued, “we will assist Jamaica in COVID recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica that have been essential to, I believe, what is necessary to strengthen not only, uhhh, the issue of public health, but also the economy.”
Also in March, the vice president rambled about the “significance of the passage of time” during a speech in Sunset, Louisiana. Harris noted the “significance of the passage of time” four times within 32 seconds.
Harris’s speeches outside the United States have also been confusing at times. During her trip to Poland in the spring, she seemed to have difficulty reading her notes while expressing where exactly she was as she spoke.
“I am here, standing here on the northern flank, on the eastern flank, talking about what we have in terms of the eastern flank and our NATO allies, and what is at stake at this very moment, what is at stake this very moment are some of the guiding principles,” she said.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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