Vice Presidential Pool Reports of June 24, 2022

VP Travel pool report #1 / VP lands in Aurora

VP landed at 10:29 am at Aurora Municipal Airport in Aurora, IL.

VP travel pool report #2 / motorcade leaves

The VP disembarked AF2 under cloudy blue skies. She greeted a party waiting for her, including U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL); Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS); Under Secretary Gil Cisneros, U.S. Department of Defense; Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (D-IL-14); and Mayor Jennifer Konen (IL-Sugar Grove)

As a group of reporters shouted to ask her about the Dobbs decision that just overruled Roe v Wade, the VP waved and gestured to her car and got in. She did not make any comments to reporters about the ruling.

The motorcade left at 10:52 for the the Avery Family YMCA in Plainfield, IL, where the VP is set to take a tour of maternal health facilities and make remarks.

VP travel pool report #3 / Harris read Dobbs opinion in air

Received this on background from a WH official:
During her flight to Illinois, the Vice President was informed by staff about the Supreme Court's decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The Vice President began reading through the decision during the flight. She also discussed the decision with Senator Durbin, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who was traveling on Air Force Two with the Vice President.

VP travel pool report #4 / VP arrives at Plainfield YMCA

The VPs motorcade arrived at the the Avery Family YMCA in Plainfield at 11:22 time. Around Two dozen protestors waved Trump flags outside the entrance to the YMCA's parking lot. Around one hundred people are seated waiting to here the VP speak in the YMCA's gym.

VP travel pool report #5 / VP doesn't go on planned tour

The VP did not go on a scheduled tour on maternal health of classrooms at the Avery Family YMCA in Plainfield, an aide said. The tour was set to be open to pool reporters. Staff then informed the pool reporters that they would not be able to join the VP.

Harris is set to speak to a crowd gathered at the YMCA's gym soon. The VP is not scheduled to take questions.

A WH official gave this statement on background:

The Vice President watched the President's speech on the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, in a classroom at the CW Avery Family YMCA in Plainfield, Illinois. She was joined by Senator Durbin, Congresswoman Lauren Underwood, CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson, and staff.

The Vice President did not go on a scheduled tour at the YMCA. She is conferring with staff and will address the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade while at the YMCA.

VP travel pool report #6 / VP speaks on Roe v. Wade

The VP spoke at the Avery Family YMCA about the Supreme Court's decision to overrule Roe v. Wade for 7 minutes in front of a crowd of over 100 people.

She described the Dobbs decision as a "health care crisis" and the first time in American history where a constitutional right was taken away. She also said the ruling could lead to other rulings that affect access to contraception and gay marriage and said the expansion of American freedom is not inevitable. Harris did not take questions from reporters after she spoke. Highlight quotes are included below.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. Lauren Underwood also spoke at the event.

The VP finished speaking at 2:30 pm and her motorcade departed for Swissotel Chicago, where the VP is set to make remarks at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) conference.

Quote highlights from VP Harris's Plainfield speech on Roe v. Wade:

• "This is a health care crisis, because understand millions of women in America will go to bed tonight without access to the health care and reproductive care that they had this morning, without access to the health care, reproductive health care that their mothers and grandmothers had for 50 years."

• "This is the first time in the history of our nation that a constitutional right has been taken from the people of America. "What is that right?" some might ask. It is the right to privacy. Think about it as the right for each person to make intimate decisions about heart and home. Decisions about the right to start a family, including contraception and the morning after pill. Decisions about whether to have a child, including.. through in vitro fertilization. Decisions to marry the person you love."

• "Today's decision calls into question other rights that we thought were settled, such as the right to use birth control, the right to same-sex marriage, the right to interracial marriage."

• "The great aspiration of our nation has been to expand freedom. But the expansion of freedom clearly is not inevitable. It is not something that just happens, not unless we defend our most fundamental principals, not unless we elect leaders who stand up for those principals.

• "You have the power to elect leaders who will defend and protect your rights... So, this is not over."

VP travel pool report #7 / VP departs NALEO conference

The VP spoke at Swissotel for 24 minutes in front of hundreds of people gathered for the NALEO conference.

She talked about the Biden/Harris administration's work to support Latino communities during the pandemic and thanked NALEO members for their work. She spoke about inflation, immigration and gun violence too. The VP also discussed the Supreme Court's decision to overrule Roe v. Wade, mostly using language she used earlier in the day in Plainfield. Quotes from her speech are attached below.

The VP departed Swissotel at 5:06 for Midway International Airport, where she is set to fly back to DC.

Quotes from VP Harris's speech at NALEO below:

"The great aspiration of our nation has been to expand freedom. It's something many of us have spent our careers fighting for. But the expansion of freedom clearly is not inevitable, and it certainly is not something that just happens."

"We believe that anyone should be able to have a dream and achieve that dream, a future where immigrants have the opportunity to have what they deserve in terms of a pathway towards citizenship. We believe in a nation and in a future where protecting the freedom to vote is not a partisan issue. We believe that women should be able to make decisions about their own bodies." [loud applause at end]

"There is no question that we are still facing a number of serious challenges, and today I'd like to talk about three of the issues which I believe are among the priorities of everyone in this room. One, lowering costs for families, building a fair and humane immigration system, and protecting people from gun violence."

"It is a tragedy that we can't pull this together as a nation and pass legislation creating a legal pathway for them, for farm workers, for TPS, and understanding what this means to families."

"There's a throughline between these tragedies: an epidemic of hate that touches us all."

"I think many of us agree that our country needs sensible gun safety laws, that yesterday's Supreme Court decision which struck down one of those laws defies common sense and defies the constitution."

VP travel pool report #9 / VP leaves Chicago for DC

AF2 lifted off from Chicago’s Midway International Airport at 7:19 headed for DC. The plane spent an hour and 50 minutes on the tarmac with the VP aboard before takeoff.

A White House official shared this on background:

Prior to the Vice President’s arrival, Air Force 2 was refueled for take off. The plane’s weight along with the temperature outside caused the rear landing gear to sink into the asphalt.

An airport tug was used to move AF2 out of the divots and to a new location for taxi. Mechanics are conducting final checks prior to our takeoff. The landing gear was inspected with no issues found prior to takeoff.