Kamala Harris on her first priority as president

The Beyoncé song “Freedom” has become Kamala Harris’ anthem – and it was a message the vice president took to the campaign trail, as CBS News traveled with Harris over two days for a behind-the-scenes look during the final stretch of the 2024 election. 

Asked by “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell why she chose to campaign that night in Texas (a reliably red state), Harris replied, “Texas is ground zero on this most extraordinary issue, which is that we are fighting for a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.”

On Friday, at Houston’s Shell Energy Stadium – the vice president’s largest rally yet – 30,000 people endured 90-degree heat to hear her scorching new attack on Texas’ strict abortion ban, which has become a lightning rod for women’s rights.

In an attack on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit aimed at accessing women’s medical records if they cross state lines to seek an abortion where it is legal, Harris said, “On the one hand, Donald Trump won’t let anyone see his medical records. And on the other hand, they want to get their hands on your medical records. Simply put: They are out of their minds.”

It was a message underscored by Beyoncé, who told the crowd, “I’m not here as a celebrity; I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother, a mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided.”

On Saturday, in the battleground state of Michigan, former first lady Michelle Obama campaigned with Harris for the first time, challenging men to see women’s health care as a life-or-death matter. “If we don’t get this election right,” Obama said, “your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women, will become collateral damage to your rage.”

Harris then told the audience, “I pledge to you, when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.”

When questioned about the process of restoring the right to an abortion that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned in 2022, Harris said, “Let’s put back in place Roe vs. Wade. …

“When Roe v. Wade was intact, for 50 years, half a century, women, together with their physicians, we’re here in a medical office talking with physicians. Women, in consultation, if they chose, with their priest, their pastor, their rabbi, their imam were able to make those [decisions].”

Asked if she also supported abortion restrictions after viability, Harris replied, “I support Roe v. Wade being put back into law by Congress, and to restore the fundamental right of women to make decisions about their own body. It is that basic.”

O’Donnell said, “But you know there were, there are restrictions – with Roe v. Wade there were restrictions after viability.”

“We would not be debating this if Donald Trump had not hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade,” Harris continued. “And what we have seen, as demonstrated last night [when women at the Houston rally spoke of the effects of the Texas abortion ban], and every day these last two years, is extraordinary harm that has occurred in America, where women have died because of Trump abortion bans; where women who have survived rape and girls incest, and no exception for someone whose body has been violated, to make a decision about what happens to their body next.

“We have seen women who are experiencing a miscarriage around a pregnancy they prayed for, and being denied healthcare because doctors are afraid they’re gonna go to prison, and those women developing sepsis. We have seen extraordinary harm and pain and suffering happen because of what Donald Trump did in intending and effectuating and overturning of Roe v. Wade. Yes, my first priority is to put back in place those protections and to stop this pain, and to stop this injustice that is happening around our country.”

O’Donnell asked, “So then, why not say what restrictions you would support as part of that?”

“I’ve told you: Let’s put back in place Roe v. Wade,” Harris replied.

“And when you argue that Donald Trump, if elected, would put forward a national abortion ban?”

“Just read Project 2025,” Harris said. [Project 2025 includes dozens of proposals for further restricting abortion, including outlawing abortion drugs and criminalizing shipping them through the mail.]

“The former president said that’s not true, he would veto [it],” O’Donnell said.

“He says everything – come on, are we really taking his word for it?” Harris replied. “He said that women should be punished. He has been all over the place on this. But I’m too busy watching what he’s doing to see what he has said.”

Harris is on the trail in Pennsylvania today, and plans to make a major address this coming Tuesday – one week ahead of Election Day. Her speech will be not in a battleground state, but in Washington, D.C., at the same place where Trump spoke to his supporters before they attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“I would, and do, think about that place more in the context of what will be behind me, which is the White House,” Harris said. “And I’m doing it there because I think it is very important for the American people to see and think about who will be occupying that space on January 20th. And the reality of it is that most Americans can visualize the Oval Office; we’ve seen it on television. And this is a real scenario. It’s either gonna be Donald Trump, or it’s gonna be me sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.”

With nine days left to go before Election Day, the vice president said there’s no doubt about what her closing arguments will be: Drawing a distinction between her plans, and those of her opponent.

She says that Trump’s first priority will be “people like him – not people like the people who are watching this right now, people who work hard, seniors, for example, who are depending on that Social Security check as the only source of their income, when Donald Trump is saying we should raise the age of Social Security to 70 before you’re eligible.”

O’Donnell said, “He says he’s going to cut taxes on their benefits.”

“He has been consistent [on that issue],” Harris said. “Again, Google Project 2025 about what he thinks about Social Security, and why he thinks it is nothing that should be supported. His intention’s to cut Medicare and Medicare benefits. His intention [is] – look, again, at Project 2025 – to repeal the $35 a month cap on insulin that we have put in place.”

“Donald Trump has disavowed Project 2025,” said O’Donnell. “He says that is not his campaign plan.”

Harris replied, “As you know, I am a former prosecutor. His DNA is all over it. All over it. His running mate wrote the foreword to the book of the author of Project 2025. I believe Donald Trump’s name appears at least 300 times in Project 2025. And it is a blueprint, a detailed blueprint, that is about the danger and the detail of what Donald Trump and his allies plan if he is in the White House again.”

• Hundreds of proposals in Project 2025 match Trump’s policies
• Trump’s Social Security plan would hasten insolvency, lead to bigger benefits cuts, analysis finds
• Here are the campaign promises Trump and Harris have made to voters

Additional excerpts from Norah O’Donnell’s interview with Kamala Harris will appear Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan”; on Monday on “CBS Mornings” and the “CBS Evening News”; and on the CBS News 24/7 Streaming Network.

Story produced by Ed Forgotson and Julie Morse. Editor: George Pozderec.

      
See also:

• Kamala Harris makes the case in “60 Minutes” interview for why she should be president
• Will this be Kamala Harris’ moment to make history? (“Sunday Morning”)

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• Kamala Harris