Vice Presidential Pool Reports of June 30, 2023

VP travel report #1/New Orleans

Good afternoon:

VP Harris made the short drive from her hotel to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, arriving at about 2:58 pm. Pool doesn't know where she is now within the cavernous structure. She is supposed to be on stage for the Essence Festival of Culture with Sunny Hostin and Monica Simpson beginning at 3:50 CST/4:50 EST.

You can watch it here

www.whitehouse.gov/live

Harris spoke at a similar event here last year.

vice president travel report #2/new orleans

VP Harris took the stage at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center at 4:55 pm CST, about 65 minutes late.

Pool has gotten no word on the reason for the delay.

The VP hugged the two moderators, Sunny Hostin and Monica Simpson, and began talking.

vice president travel report #3/new orleans - lid

VP Harris answered questions from Sunny Hostin and Monica Simpson for 48 minutes, ending at 5:43 CST, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The room was full and held at least 1,000 people.

The VP was asked about the Dobbs decision, about reducing the maternal mortality rate for Black women, gun violence, the reason for resistance to progressive ideas and what people in the crowd should do.

A sample of her remarks, but check the official transcript:

On abortion: "First of all, one doesn't have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to believe that the government should not be telling her what to do with her body."

On no exception for abortion following a rape: "The extremist, so-called leaders," she said, want a women "who has survived a crime of violence" to then have no say "about what will happen to your body next."

Later she asked rhetorically: "Is there any law that tells a man what to do with his body?"

Harris said that the U.S. is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, but Black women suffer from a maternal mortality rate that is three or four times higher. She blamed it on "racial bias."

On gun violence: "We need people in the statehouses and the United States Congress who have the courage to act around very clear and reasonable gun safety laws, who don't fall for the false choice that you're either in favor of the 2ndAmendment or you want to take everybody's guns. he I support the 2nd amendment, but we need an assault weapons ban. Assault weapons are literally designed to kill a lot of human beings quickly. These are weapons of war that have no place in a civil society."

On what the crowd should do: Previous civil rights leaders, Harris said, "They carried the baton for the time they had it, and then they passed it to us. The question is: What did we do while we were carrying the baton?"