Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to the birthplace of the Republican Party Thursday to say that the 2024 election is not only about the US — but also about the war in Ukraine — as she hyped a double endorsement from the Cheney family.
“Democracy and freedom are not only at stake here at home. They are also at stake around the world,” Harris, 59, said in Ripon, Wis., after an introduction from Cheney, the fiery anti-Donald Trump former congresswoman from Wyoming.
Harris told the crowd of her meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week, in which she said she told him, “I stand with Ukraine and I always will.”
“I want to Ukraine to prevail,” the vice president went on, noting that Trump, 78, did not say he wanted Ukraine to “win” in their presidential debate last month and suggesting he’d hand a strategic victory to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Harris said that Trump wants Ukraine to give up sovereign territory, which she said is a “bedrock principle upon which we stand and fight for.”
The campaign stop in Ripon with the younger Cheney, 58 — whose father Dick Cheney served as vice president to George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009 — focused on Trump’s place in the Republican Party.
Both Cheneys have come out in support of Harris.
The former congresswoman took several digs at Trump, saying, “I was a Republican before Donald Trump began spray-tanning” — as she recited her well-worn denunciation of the former president’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when he urged a mob to march on the Capitol to challenge his loss in the Electoral College.
“He summoned a mob to Washington, DC, with his lies, and he sent the armed mob the United States Capitol in an effort to stop the counting of electoral votes as the violent mob attacked our Capitol,” said Cheney, who served as vice chair of the House investigation into the riot.
Cheney, who was born in the swing state, spoke at length about being a Ronald Reagan-style Republican and cited passages from the newly unsealed court filing from Wednesday in which special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump for his actions challenging his loss, alleged that Trump said “so what” in reaction to then-Vice President Mike Pence being evacuated during the riot.
Harris gave Cheney, with whom Trump frequently clashed on foreign policy, a glowing review, saying they are aligned for their love of country, despite being from different parties.
“We may not see eye to eye on every issue,” she said, “and we’re going to get back to a healthy two-party system … but we both love our country and democratic ideals.”
Retiring President Biden also heaped praise on Cheney, who has been coy about her own presidential ambitions within a post-Trump Republican Party.
“She made one of the most consequential speeches I’ve ever heard,” Biden raved to reporters.
“She has character. I know her dad,” he added. “We argue like hell, but I always admired his courage and honesty. What she did not took only political courage, but physical courage… I was really incredibly proud of her.”
Biden added, “She and her father have character, character, dammit.”