After three days of spectacle, the Democratic convention ended, in front of a transcended crowd, with this speech launching the duel against Donald Trump.
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![US Vice President Kamala Harris delivers her closing remarks at the Democratic convention in Chicago on August 22, 2024. (JACEK BOCZARSKI / ANADOLU / AFP)](https://www.francetvinfo.fr/pictures/ICcI_DY62Ests9FYM5T3ChlqOoY/0x345:4927x3114/432x243/2024/08/23/068-aa-23082024-1830574-66c818642953f639427476.jpg)
A release of blue, white and red balloons, accompanied by the voices of Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin. This is how the spectacle of the Democratic convention ended, Thursday, August 22 in Chicago (Illinois) after a speech given by its candidate, now officially invested by the party for the presidential election in November. To the cheers of an excited audience, Kamala Harris notably promised “to be the president of all Americans”. “I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads and listens.” she hammered.
Throughout her speech, the 59-year-old vice president used as a common thread the story of her mother, an Indian immigrant to the United States where she became a scientist. Among the themes that marked the big hour of her speech at the podium: reforming an immigration system considered “failing”supporting an economy that “allows everyone to succeed” and restore abortion rights across the country.
While her program is not officially finalized, Kamala Harris has multiplied the attacks against her Republican opponent. According to her, Donald Trump plans to “to bring back [le] backward country”, to the point that she declared that she had launched herself “in a battle for America’s future.”
Donald Trump repeated on Thursday that his Democratic rival wanted, according to him, to tip the country into “communism”, an argument widely taken up by his Republican supporters. According to The Worldthe Republican candidate had his eyes fixed on his opponent’s speech and he even dialed the numbers of two American television channels to react.
On the diplomatic front, Kamala Harris fired another arrow at the American billionaire by explaining that if she were elected in November, she would not “friends with dictators” and would stand “firmly alongside Ukraine and [ses] NATO allies”.
But it was her position on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East that attracted most attention. The vice president first made it clear that she “will defendt[t] “Israel’s right to defend itself will always be there” and “I will ensure[t] always ensuring that Israel has the capacity to defend itself,” before deploring a situation “catastrophic”, for ten months in the Gaza Strip. Kamala Harris promised the release of the hostages, “self-determination” for the Palestinians and “conclude“an agreement on a truce in Gaza.