Vice Presidential Pool Reports of April 7, 2023

4:00 pm: Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at the Berry Field Air National Guard Base in Nashville, Tennessee. Harris was greeted by Col. Ted Geasley, commander of the 118th Wing.

Harris is traveling to Fisk University, where she is expected to meet with Tennessee legislators. Fisk is hosting a gathering of community leaders to support former Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, who were expelled from the General Assembly Thursday night, and Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, who narrowly survived an expulsion vote.

VP Supplemental Pool #2 – Fisk University

5 p.m. The Vice President met with Pearson, Jones and Johnson privately at the John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library on Fisk's campus.

The Vice President then met with Tennessee Democratic lawmakers, including Tennessee General Assembly minority leaders Sen. Raumesh Akbari and Rep. Karen Camper, both of Memphis. Nashville Mayor John Cooper was also present. The meeting was closed to the press.

Down the road, a crowd began to pack into the Fisk Memorial Chapel for an event to support the Tennessee Three

VP Supplemental Pool #3 - Fisk University

5:40: Inside Fisk Memorial Chapel, Nashville Mayor John Cooper decried the expulsion proceedings at the General Assembly Thursday night.

"Democracy requires every voice," Cooper said. "Don't resort to silencing when you don't like what is being said."

Cooper introduced the Vice President, who entered the chapel to a standing ovation and cheers.

The Vice President recognized Pearson, Jones and Johnson, seated at the front of the chapel.

"We are here because they chose to show courage in the face of an extreme tragedy," the Vice President said, before recognizing the March 27 Covenant shooting. "Eleven days ago, six people — three educators, and three babies, nine years old — were murdered senselessly due to gun violence."

The Vice President criticized the suggestion that one can support either the Second Amendment or "reasonable gun laws."

"We can and should do both," she said.

The gun-reform protest the lawmakers mounted in the Tennessee House last week "wasn't about the three of these leaders," she said.

"It was about who they were representing, it was about whose voices they were channeling," the Vice President said. "Is that not what a democracy allows? A democracy says you don't silence the people, you do not stifle the people, you do not turn off their microphones when they are speaking about the importance of life and liberty."