Kamala Harris Officially Announces White House Run On ‘Good Morning America’
As expected, California Sen. Kamala Harris officially announced her 2020 White House bid on Martin Luther King Day morning.
Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America, George Stephanopoulos set the stage, noting Harris first had been elected to the Senate in 2016 after 20 years as a prosecutor, including stints as San Francisco’s DA and California Attorney General.
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Robin Roberts, stepping on whatever made-for-TV drama Harris’s announcement might still have held, told viewers Harris has been laying the groundwork for a run for the White House, then asking her, “Do you have an announcement you would like to make?”
“I am running for President of the United States,” Harris said, in response to which one person off camera could be heard saying “Yay!” – answering the burning question among media pundits as to why Dems are announcing White House bids on Stephen Colbert’s late-night show instead of TV news programs.
In marked contrast to her GMA appearance, when Harris appeared on Colbert’s show days earlier, his Ed Sullivan Theater crowd of about 400 broke out in raucous applause and whistling when Colbert asked: “Many people who put out books two years before a presidential election do so to introduce themselves in a broad way to the American people. Are you going to run for President?”
Even bigger applause broke out she answered, “I might.”
On both shows, Harris had delivered virtually same talking points: U.S. is an aspirational country, we are flawed but our strength is that we fight to reach those ideals, etc.
When she appeared on CBS’ late-night show, Colbert had noted “There is some reporting you will announce on Martin Luther King Day. Should I keep my schedule open that day?”
Harris did not directly answer that question.
Colbert’s guest tonight is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Harris is joining an already-crowded field of Dems hoping to replace President Donald Trump including Julian Castro, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Rep. John Delaney, Richard Ojeda and Andrew Yang.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) announced the formation of an “exploratory committee” on Colbert’s show shortly after Harris guested on the show; Sen. Elizabeth Warren also went the old-fashioned “exploratory committee” route. Meanwhile, Sen. Sherrod Brown announced he is going on a “listening tour.”
Here is Harris’s appearance on Colbert’s program, in which she had made it official she “might” run:
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