Historic Kamala Harris – VG

One hundred years after American women gained the right to vote, which was reserved primarily for white women, Kamala Harris has become the first woman to be elected vice president of the United States.

She is also the first African American and Asian American to be named vice president.

Harris has now changed the description on Twitter to “incoming vice president.”

– This choice is much more than Joe Biden or me. It is about the soul of America and our willingness to fight for it. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Let’s get started, write on Twitter.

Harris later released a video in which he said in a phone call:

– We did it, Joe. You are going to be the next president of the United States.

Even though the major media have now named Biden as the winner, there are still formal processes in the tally and the result has not been made official.

In addition, the incumbent president questions the results in several states. Donald Trump and his team have presented no evidence of their allegations of voter fraud.

In Oakland, the hometown of Kamala Harris, huge crowds have taken to the streets. Protesters cheering with Biden / Harris signs are greeted by honking cars. On one of the main streets, two DJs have installed a mixing console and happy people dance in the street whenever there is a red light.

– Joe Biden wants to bring peace and dignity to the White House, and as a woman, I think it’s great that Kamala Harris becomes Vice President. This is a fantastic time for our country and it means a lot to me and my daughter, says Katie D’Angelo to VG, who is with her daughter Brooke on the street.

“Do something!”

Harris earned a BA in political science and economics from Howard University in Washington, DC in 1986. In 1989, he completed his law studies at Hastings College of The Law at the University of California.

She started out as a prosecutor, before becoming a state attorney in San Francisco, as the first woman and then as attorney general in California. In 2016, she was elected to the Senate.

He previously served as the California Attorney General. In 2019, Harris ran for the Democratic Party presidential candidate, but withdrew in December of that year.

Its origin is still controversial. Descriptions of “tough police chief” have followed her since she ran for president last year.

In her first speech after being elected as vice president, Harris spoke about how her mother raised her and her sister Maya to become politically engaged.

– He told us: «Don’t just sit there. Do something! “, Said.

Harris herself has repeatedly said how she was affected by her parents’ past as a civil rights activist.

“We joked that we grew up surrounded by a group of adults who marched and shouted about something they called justice,” he told the Washington Post last summer.

– She has a laser focus

Debbie Mesloh, a friend of the vice president, who has also been his adviser, says her mother has had a great influence on Harris.

– One of the things I’ve learned from Kamala is not to let others define you. Her mother talked about it all the time, Mesloh told VG previously.

But ambitions to become a top politician didn’t exist from the start, according to two of Harris’s friends, with whom VG has spoken.

– He wants to make the world a better place. “I think it’s natural that her talents and values ​​led her into politics, but I never got the impression that this is where she started,” says Libby Schaaf, who is now mayor of Oakland, the city where Harris was born.

– I think she has always wanted to make a difference. Ambitions developed as he moved from office to office, Mesloh says.

In private, Harris describes himself as warm and caring. He likes to cook, and then preferably a combination of Indian and Jamaican dishes. At the same time, he is agile, with a wonderful sense of humor, according to his friends.

– She is also very modern, says Mesloh.

– I think now everyone has seen it in Converse and Timberlands.

Donald Trump has called Harris a communist and a monster. While friends talk about an “intrepid champion”, who will not be defined by others.

Mesloh isn’t surprised by the features. She thinks it shows what women have to put up with at this level in politics.

– For me, as a friend, it has been difficult to see all the nicknames and insults, but she will never let something like that get in her way, she says.

– It has a laser focus. When she is treated like this, she works twice as hard to prove what is possible. And she has always done that.