Kamala Harris: Trump Rejects Science While Climate Change ‘Is Threatening Our Very Existence’

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) attempted to provide a contrast between President Trump and Joe Biden (D) during a Wednesday campaign stop in Asheville, North Carolina, warning supporters that Trump consistently rejects science, specifically on the Chinese coronavirus and the “issue of this climate crisis,” which she said is “threatening our very existence.”

“Thirteen days to go. And we cannot spare a minute, sisters and brothers. We cannot spare a minute,” Harris told a group of supporters in Asheville for an early voter mobilization event before criticizing the president.

“On the one hand, you have a Donald Trump who has been rejecting science from day one,” she said. “Rejecting science on the issue of this climate crisis, which is threatening our very existence. Rejecting science on the issue of this virus.”

“And on the other hand, you have a Joe Biden, who embraces science, who will be a leader who says that the public health experts must guide the policy decision we make on all of these issues that literally threaten the health and well-being of the American people,” she continued, failing to explain Biden’s rejection of the Green New Deal, which occurred during the first presidential debate.

Notably, NBC’s Kristen Welker, who is moderating the final presidential debate, initially listed climate change as a topic despite expectations of the event focusing on foreign policy.

During the speech, Harris described the Chinese coronavirus pandemic as an “accelerator” in that “it has highlighted what was wrong before and has made it worse.” Speaking to the group in what she described as a parking lot, the vice presidential hopeful accused Trump and his administration of covering up crucial information on the virus early in the year.

“And instead, the president of the United States, the commander in chief whose first responsibility should be to keep the American people safe,” she yelled, “sat on this information and suggested to the American people you’re on one side of his ledger if you don’t wear a mask and on the other side of his ledger if you do.”

Harris’s stump speech was reminiscent of the speech she delivered in Orlando, Florida, on Monday, repeating her claim that Trump has a “weird obsession” with trying to undo the Obama-Biden legacy.

“And in the midst of all this, the public health crisis, you’ve got Donald Trump and his boy Bill Barr in United States Supreme Court — this is stranger than fiction. Have you ever heard that expression? Fact is stranger than fiction? We’re living it. We’re living it, sister — trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act that President Obama and Vice President Biden made happen.”

“He’s got this weird obsession with wanting to get rid of whatever President Obama and Vice President Biden created. It’s just this obsession right?” she said of Trump.

Harris, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also blasted the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, referring to it as an “illegitimate process”:

We’re not talking about election season. We’re not talking about election year. We’re talking about an election that is taking place right now where over 20 million Americans have voted, and the election will be over in 13 days, and the majority of the American people are saying let the American people decide who will be their president and then that is the person who should decide who should fill a lifetime appointment to the highest court in our land.

Harris added that she will oppose Barrett’s confirmation “for a number of reasons that include the illegitimacy of the process, that include the right of women to make decisions about their own body and their own reproductive health care, [and] that include the need to maintain the Affordable Care Act.”

The vice presidential hopeful told North Carolina voters that she believes the outcome of the race “in very many ways” will come down to voters in North Carolina, emphasizing that their decisions will affect Americans nationwide.

Harris will also visit Charlotte on Wednesday. Trump is also appearing in the battleground state, holding a rally in Gastonia in the evening.