On Sunday, Kamala Harris took part in the remembrance for the 21st anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which is situated at ground zero.
Her trip to New York City coincided with the vice president’s pre-recorded interview with Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, in which he said that domestic dangers to democracy should be dealt with in the same way as international terrorists.
According to her, “attacks from inside” were “extremely detrimental” to America’s reputation as a “role model” for democracy.
On Sunday, Harris was joined in New York City by Doug Emhoff, a second gentleman.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio were among the notable attendees at the solemn occasion.
Before the wedding, Harris and Emhoff were seen grinning for the cameras.
President Joe Biden, who had left his house in Wilmington early to participate in a wreath-laying ceremony and make a speech at the Pentagon, was also travelling to Washington, D.C.
Watch as @VP Harris expresses her “serious worry” with the message the United States is delivering about democracy on #MTP.
Despite how unifying a day 9/11 is, Harris reinforced the views of other Democrats in her NBC interview by saying that the people who supported Donald Trump and assaulted the Capitol on January 6, 2021 are enemies of democracy.
Harris admitted to Todd that the Senate Intelligence Committee was her favourite panel when she served on it.
The reason, according to her, is that the press was prohibited from entering the SCIF whether any of us, Republicans, Democrats, or Independents, came through its doors. No witnesses, no crowds—just us.
People would roll up their sleeves and take off their coats, and they were Americans first, focused on the challenges to our national security.
They were on common ground and had a single goal, which was to protect our country from assault.
“I would that we would approach it the same way – as Americans, instead of through some political lens,” Harris said, “when I think about what we have been witnessing in terms of the assaults from inside.”
Harris was pushed ahead by host Chuck Todd, who said, “It seems like you believe this danger is as big.”
“I believe it to be a threat. And I believe it to be really destructive and hazardous. Additionally, it weakens us, the vice president retorted.
She said that as “a guardian and an example of a strong democracy,” the US has a responsibility to eliminate internal challenges to voting freedom.
Harris said, “And one of the things, however, that comes with that privilege is that we set ourselves up to be a role model, which means the rest of the world watches what we do to see whether it fits up with what we say, like any role model.”
When she criticised Republican candidates for state secretary positions as “election deniers,” the vice president took an overtly political turn.
Regarding the message that US election denialism sends to the rest of the world, she stated, “I’m really worried about that.”
“Because there are so many situations in the globe that, in my opinion, call for, at the very least, how we Americans have historically thought about what is right, what is good, what should be fought for, what should be human principles, and certainly the goals of democracies.”
And I believe that as a result of everything we’ve gone through, we’re beginning to let people doubt our adherence to those ideals. And that’s unfortunate.
Harris received criticism earlier this year for drawing parallels between the Capitol brawl on January 6 and the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 and September 11th.
On the one-year anniversary of the uprising, Harris declared in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, “Certain dates reverberate throughout history, including dates that quickly recall everyone who has lived through them where they were, and what they were doing, when our democracy was under attack.”
December 7, 1941, September 11, 2001, and January 6, 2021 are days that will live in our collective memory as well as on our calendars.