‘My heart is full today’: Harris concedes loss to Trump as others warn a few second time period | EUROtoday

Kamala Harris conceded defeat within the 2024 presidential race in opposition to Donald Trump in remarks from her alma mater Howard University, formally ending her historic marketing campaign in opposition to her Republican rival after her decisive losses in a sequence of hard-fought battleground states that President Joe Biden gained simply 4 years in the past.

“My heart is full today,” the vp mentioned in remarks to supporters from the college campus in Washington DC on Wednesday night.

“Full of gratitude for the trust you’ve placed in me, full of love for our country, and full of resolve,” she added.

Several thousand supporters poured into Howard University for her concession speech, a somber occasion with a DJ taking part in dance tracks and marketing campaign volunteers handing out American flags for company to wave. One girl was noticed filming herself on a TikTook miming tears coming down her face earlier than going again to absentmindedly dancing in place.

Many Howard college students had been within the crowd, together with a handful wearing fraternity and sorority outfits. Some appeared to be combating again tears. Jaime Harrison, the stone-faced chair of the Democratic National Committee, handed reporters on the again of a golf cart as he waved to a couple supporters. He introduced at this time that he wouldn’t search re-election.

“The outcome of this election was not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for, but hear me when I say: the light of America’s promise will always burn bright, and as long as we never give up, and as long as we keep fighting,” Harris advised the assembled company.

The candidates confirmed they spoke with each other on Wednesday, and that Harris “congratulated him on his historic victory,” in keeping with Trump’s marketing campaign communications director Steven Cheung.

“President Trump acknowledged Vice President Harris on her strength, professionalism, and tenacity throughout the campaign, and both leaders agreed on the importance of unifying the country,” he added.

Trump, as he declared victory within the early morning hours on Tuesday, referred to as his election a “political victory that our country has never seen before” that might usher in a “golden age.”

A veteran of his first time period within the White House, Olivia Troye, advised The Independent as she entered Harris’s occasion on Wednesday that she was frightened a second Trump presidency could be absolutely unhinged.

“Am I shocked? Yes. Am I horrified at what’s to come? Yes. I lived the Trump presidency the first time around,” Troye mentioned. “My greatest concern is that people like myself, people like General [Mark] Milley, Mark Esper won’t be there… and I think about what this future administration looks like.”

She went on to foretell that Americans who voted for Trump with out figuring out the total implications of his second crack at governing had been in for a “rude awakening”.

Harris mentioned that the Biden-Harris administration is ready to work with the incoming Trump staff and to “ensure a peaceful transfer of power” — drawing an unstated distinction to Trump’s baseless makes an attempt to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election he misplaced, culminating in a mob of his supporters launching a violent assault contained in the Capitol.

One of the loudest cheers for her speech got here because the vp commented that her supporters would again a peaceable switch of energy and honor the election outcomes.

“A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. And anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it,” she added. “We owe loyalty not to a president or a party but to the Constitution of the United States.”

That peaceable transition distinguishes the US “from monarchy and tyranny,” Harris mentioned in her 12-minute remarks, powered by marketing campaign anthem “Freedom” by Beyonce. The music, which has adopted the vp throughout the nation, was blasted loudly as company poured out — one girl in her mid-30s visbly broke down sobbing as she left, the music blaring behind her.

While Harris admitted defeat on this race, she mentioned she is going to “not concede the fight that fueled this campaign.”

She urged in opposition to “despair,” returning to her “when we fight, we win” slogan to reminder her supporters that the struggle typically “takes a while.”

“To the young people who are watching: it is OK to feel sad and disappointed,” she mentioned. “But please know it’s going to be OK.”

Fatima Goss-Graves, co-founder of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, was on the speech and advised The Independent that she was “devastated” by the consequence.

“I knew I had to come out today because Vice President Harris and Governor Walz, they have run a tremendous campaign that put the issues that women in this country are facing center, issues that families in this country are facing in the center, and did it with hope and dignity,” she mentioned, including: “It’s devastating to get the results.”

The marketing campaign, she mentioned, was “an invitation for us all to dream for something better for ourselves. So I needed to be here.”

Harris, who would have been the primary girl to carry the presidency, completed by telling supporters to not “ever listen when anyone tells you something is impossible because it has never been done before.”