Kamala Returns: Bizarre 18-Minute Speech Talks Elephants, Trump

Former Vice President Kamala Harris emerged from political hibernation to deliver a stern rebuke of President Trump — soon descending into one of her trademark word salads, this time bizarrely focusing on a viral video of elephants during an earthquake.

“A lot of folks are wondering what’s going to guide us through this moment. How are we all going to figure out how to chart the course?” Harris said during her Wednesday address at Emerge’s 20th anniversary gala in San Francisco. “Please allow me, friends, to digress for a moment.”

“OK, it’s kind of dark in here, but I’m ask[ing] for a show of hands — who saw that video from a couple of weeks ago, the one of the elephants at the San Diego Zoo during the earthquake? Google it if you’ve not seen it,” she then said with a cackle.

Harris described how after elephants “felt the earth shaking beneath their feet,” they “got in a circle and stood next to each other to protect the most vulnerable.”

“What a powerful metaphor,” she said. “Because we know those who try to incite fear are most effective when they divide and conquer, when they separate the herd, when they try to make everyone think they are alone.”

The confusing sidetrack came in the middle of a speech that painted a dystopian view of America under Trump as her former 2024 foe marks his 100th day in the White House.

Emerge, which hosted the gala where Harris spoke, is a progressive organization that trains women to run for office.

Earlier in the speech, Harris ripped Trump for creating “the greatest manmade economic crisis in modern presidential history,” while also accusing him of a “wholesale abandonment” of American ideals and flirting with a constitutional crisis.

Her address was mixed with dark imagery about Trump’s “vision for America,” with brief positive asides and many of her classic cackles.

“Americans across the political spectrum who are declaring that the president’s reckless tariffs hurt workers and families by raising the cost of everyday essentials, devastate the retirement accounts that people spent a lifetime paying into, and paralyze American businesses, large and small,” Harris said.

The former vice president, who until Wednesday had largely refrained from uttering Trump’s name in public since her 2024 loss, also accused him of violating presidential norms.

“We here know that when the checks and balances ultimately collapse, if Congress fails to do its part, or if the courts fail to do their part, or if both do their part but the president defies them anyway … that is called a constitutional crisis,” she lamented.

She warned that such a crisis “will eventually impact everyone” and that the one recourse the public will have “is the voice of the people.”

Harris stressed that progressives cannot be “duped that everything is chaos,” and that the GOP “agenda that has been decades in the making.”

She also decried Trump’s crackdown on colleges and universities across the country as “unconstitutional demands that threaten the pursuit of truth and academic independence” — and seemingly slammed his admin’s wrongful deportation of alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

“It is not OK to violate court orders,” she said. “It is not OK to detain or disappear American citizens or anyone without due process.”

Since her defeat by Trump last November, Harris has largely laid low and shied away from the limelight, despite underscoring at the time that it’s “not in my nature to go quietly into the night.”

Since her devastating election loss, the former vice president has made rare public appearances, such as her address to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Image Awards in February.

Other Democrats have been far more forceful. Her former running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has participated in town halls across red districts and given numerous media interviews.

During her keynote address at the Emerge gala, Harris commended her fellow Democrats who have stepped up.

“I have been inspired by the movements, like the one in Wisconsin that put Susan Crawford on the [state] Supreme Court,” she said.

“And by leaders across the spectrum, including congressional leaders like Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, AOC, and Bernie Sanders,” she added, a few of whom flew to visit Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. “All who in different ways have been speaking with moral clarity.”

During her time out of the spotlight, Harris has been rumored to have been contemplating her political future, which could entail a run for California governor in 2026, a third bid for the presidency in 2028, or sticking to the sidelines and leveraging her bully pulpit.

She gave no hint about where she’s leaning on that front during her speech, but rather issued a clarion call to progressives, urging them to fight.

“I am not here tonight to offer all the answers, but I am here to say this: Things are probably going to get worse before they get better,” she proclaimed. “But we are ready for it. We are not going to scatter.”

“Let’s lock it in,” she added. “This country is ours. It doesn’t belong to whoever is in the White House. It belongs to you. It belongs to us.”