Vice President Kamala Harris, the former San Francisco district attorney, arrived at her old stomping ground Wednesday to raise money for the Biden-Harris reelection campaign and was greeted by more than a hundred pro-Palestinian protesters.
Her appearance in the Bay Area comes a day before former President Trump is scheduled to attend a fundraising dinner in San Francisco, exactly a week since he was convicted on 34 felony counts for falsifying records in a scheme to hide hush money payments to a porn actor.
Harris arrived in San Francisco after an earlier fundraiser at a private home in the Oakland Hills.
Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the venue where Harris was expected to speak and shouted, “Shame on you!” and “Cease fire!” as attendees walked inside. Police asked protesters to move down the block away from the venue, threatening arrests. They quickly set up barricades between protesters and police. Activists’ shouts grew louder as the vice president’s motorcade approached.
Demonstrators calling for a cease-fire in Gaza protest in San Francisco as Vice President Kamala Harris arrived for a fundraiser.
(Anabel Sosa / Los Angeles Times)
Inside an intimate live music venue in San Francisco’s Mission district, Harris addressed a roomful of about 100 supporters, including some she said she recognized from her years in Bay Area politics.
“We have all been involved in these four-year cycles many times together,” Harris said. “We have almost every time talked about ‘this is the one.’ Well, this year is the one. Everything is at stake in this election.”
The gathering was hosted by Democratic donors Shannon Hunt-Scott, Stacy Mason and Sheila Thompson and small-business owner Manny Yekutiel, who runs a local venue that hosts civic events.
For a portion of the event that reporters were allowed to attend, Harris made no mention of Trump’s criminal conviction or President Biden’s executive order to restrict asylum seekers from crossing the southern border.
During her 13-minute remarks, Harris talked about the loss of abortion rights in states across the country and repeated her call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.
“What we’ve seen in Gaza is far too many innocent civilians being killed,” she said. “Humanitarian aid being denied in many cases. The president and I have been very clear. This war must end, we need a cease-fire, we need the hostages out, we need aid going in, and we need to be committed to a two-state solution.”
