Vice President Kamala Harris has issued a warning to any potential home intruder: “If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot.”
The Democratic presidential candidate and gun owner made the seemingly unguarded comment in an interview with Oprah Winfrey before a live studio audience on Thursday when the conversation turned to gun laws.
“I probably should not have said that. But my staff will deal with that later,” Ms Harris said, laughing.
Ms Harris, who has robust protection from the US Secret Service, made the statement amid heightened concern about political violence after a second potential assassination attempt against her opponent in the November 5 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump.
Mr Trump favours few restrictions on arms and ammunition while Ms Harris supports a ban on assault weapons, stricter background checks for gun buyers, and “red flag” laws that can temporarily take guns away from those deemed dangerous.
Ms Harris told Winfrey she supported the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects the right to gun ownership.
Ms Harris mentioned her gun ownership in 2019 when she was a US senator and again in last week’s debate with Mr Trump.
Ms Harris owns a handgun for personal safety reasons, and it is stowed away in a secure location at her California home, a White House source told Reuters earlier. The source declined to identify the make of gun, but said it is the same gun Ms Harris mentioned in 2019 on the campaign trail.
Ms Harris, the former district attorney of San Francisco and California attorney general, told reporters in 2019: “I am a gun owner, and I own a gun for probably the reason a lot of people do – for personal safety. I was a career prosecutor.”
One-third of Americans own a gun and about two-thirds of Americans support stricter gun laws overall, with nearly 90pc supporting policies that would prevent mentally ill people from getting guns, Pew Research shows.
The star-studded virtual “United for America” event hosted by Winfrey on Thursday night drew hundreds of thousands of viewers across social media.
Shanette Williams, the mother of Amber Nicole Thurman, a 28-year old Georgia woman who died in August 2022 after a hospital treatment delay related to the state’s restrictive abortion laws, told the audience: “You’re looking at a mother that is broken, the worst pain ever that a mother, that a parent can ever feel.”
Ms Harris responded: “I’m just so sad. And the courage that you all have shown is extraordinary.” Many in the studio audience of about 400 were in tears.
Celebrities including comedians Chris Rock and Ben Stiller along with actors Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and Bryan Cranston joined the event and offered their reasons for backing Ms Harris or peppered her with questions.
“I want to bring my daughters to the White House to meet this Black woman president,” Rock said.
Mr Trump on Thursday addressed a group of Jewish donors and the Israeli-American Council in Washington, promising to be “their best friend” ever in the White House.
“My promise to Jewish Americans is this: With your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House,” Mr Trump said during the donor event in Washington, titled “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America”.
“But in all fairness, I already am,” the former Republican president Trump said. During his four years in office Mr Trump approved a series of policy changes long sought by many advocates of Israel, such as moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognising Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights.
In his remarks, Mr Trump criticised Ms Harris over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war and for what he called anti-Semitic protests on college campuses and elsewhere.
“Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing. She has not lifted a single finger to protect you or to protect your children,” Mr Trump said. He also repeated a talking point that Jewish voters who vote for Democrats “should have their head examined”.
On Thursday Mr Trump also said the US Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by half of a percentage point was “a political move”.
“It really is a political move. Most people thought it was going to be half of that number, which probably would have been the right thing to do,” Mr Trump said in an interview with Newsmax.
Mr Trump said last month that presidents should have a say over decisions made by the Federal Reserve.
Meanwhile the chair of the Federal Communications Commission rejected Mr Trump’s suggestion that Walt Disney-owned ABC should lose its broadcast licenses over the network’s moderating of the September 10 presidential debate, Reuters reported.
“The First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy. The commission does not revoke licences for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said on Thursday.
The FCC, an independent federal agency, does not licence broadcast networks, but issues them to individual broadcast stations that are renewed for eight-year periods.
Mr Trump claimed the debate was “rigged” because the ABC News moderators fact checked several comments he made.
“They ought to take away their license for the way they did that,” Mr Trump told Fox News.
The Trump campaign and Disney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ms Harris also stepped up her efforts to win over voters who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, enlisting prominent members of the faith to make the case in pivotal Arizona that Mr Trump does not align with the church’s values.
Her state campaign announced on Thursday an advisory committee to formalise the outreach to current and former members of the church, widely known as the Mormon church.
With nearly 450,000 church members in Arizona, about 6pc of the state’s population, Latter-day Saints and former church members could prove critical in what will likely be an extremely close race, the Associated Press reported.
