Kamala Harris speaks in Texas hours after Trump questions her racial identity in interview

“I say to the incredible members of Sigma Gamma Ro Sorority inc, there is so much at stake in this moment. The election is in 97 days. And once again, our nation is counting on you,” she says, “Because when we organise, mountains move, when we organise, nations change, and when we vote, we make history.”

“So let us continue to fight with faith, with optimism, and with hope,” she says.

She ends her speech.

“In the states where the majority of black women live, every state except Virginia has an abortion ban,” Harris says.

She promises to sign abortion protections into law – to loud cheers.

“This afternoon Donald Trump spoke at the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists’ and it was the same old show: the divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better,” she says.

“A leader who tells the truth. Who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts. Who understands our differences do not divide us.”

Harris repeats her campaign messaging on fighting hidden fees, rent increases, and protecting healthcare.

“We are not going back,” she says, repeating a key Harris 2024 catchphrase.

“Our nation needs you,” she says.

Harris takes to the stage in Houston at the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc.’s 60th International Biennial Boulé. She’s smiling, she’s laughing, and she says she’s speaking “as a proud member of the divine nine.”

“I believe in the promise of America. And aren’t so many of us empirical evidence of the promise of America,” she says.

“Greater service brings greater progress,” she says. She starts listing the achievements of the sorority which, she says, “helped elect Joe Biden as the president of the United States and me as the first woman Vice President of the United States”.

As we wait for Harris to speak at the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc.’s 60th International Biennial Boulé, here is a brief look at how Harris’s candidacy has shone a spotlight on the power of Black US sororities and fraternities.

Harris is herself a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. The country’s nine most prominent Greek letter organisations are called the “Divine Nine”. Altogether, the US’s Black sororities and fraternities have more than two million members in the US.

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“Their voter engagement programs reach millions every four years. More, each organization controls a hefty operating budget and their combined revenue would exceed $150 million, according to public records,” the New York Times reported earlier this week.

“Greek letter organizations who have worked in the trenches, some for over 100 years, never received any kind of publicity, any kind of notoriety,” Representative Frederica S. Wilson of Florida, who is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, told the New York Times earlier this week. Once Ms. Harris ran for president, in 2020, she said, that changed. “The A.K.A.s shouted to the highest hills, ‘That’s our soror! That’s our sister!’”

Trump repeats totally false claims that the 2020 was “rigged” by the Democrats.

Trump meanwhile repeats another of his catchphrases, “Drill, baby, drill”. As his speech crosses the one hour mark, the people behind him are getting fidgety, chatting among themselves and looking bored.

Arizona senator Mark Kelly, among the names tipped to be Harris’s running mate, has addressed Trumps’ comments about Harris, telling reporters they are, “the comments of a desperate, scared old man who is, over the last week especially, is having his butt kicked by an experienced prosecutor.”

“I think he’s worried, and she’s going to continue to do this, and she’s going to win the election in November, and she’s going to be our next president. And you know, his, his comments are not unexpected from him,” Kelly said, per CNN.

Kamala Harris will be speaking at a black sorority event in Houston shortly. She will be taking to the stage hours after Donald Trump’s interview at the National Association of Black Journalists’ annual convention shocked the audience and ended up being cut short, apparently by his team. He claimed that he has been the “best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln”, adding that a “Black job” is “anybody that has a job”.

New York Magazine has done a deep dive on Trump’s obsession with Hannibal Lecter. TLDR: nobody has managed to make sense of it. If you want to try, here are the theories.

Trump repeats racist assertions about immigrants from “Asia, Africa, the Middle East”.

He is again referring to Hannibal Lecter, the fictional cannibal.

“Why does he keep mentioning Hannibal Lecter,” Trump says, and again repeats that Hannibal Lecter would like to have you for dinner.

He says it makes sense to mention Lecter because “insane people” are coming into the US. (I cannot make sense of this).

Trump is talking about Nancy Pelosi now, and the 6 January insurrection. “The fake news is trying to delete everything,” he says. But that the “internet is wonderful in some ways, we have a copy of every single article”.

We will soon be turning to Kamala Harris’s speech in Texas.

Trump is again talking about what he says is Harris’s record on immigration. He repeats a string of false and unsubstantiated claims.

Trump did not say outright that he would debate Harris. He appeared to signal that he might – “challenge accepted” – but technically he old agreed to compare records.

Here is exactly what he said:

In one of the most phony moments of her speech last night Kamala Harris bragged “I would proudly put my record against Donald Trump any day of the week”…

Well Kamala lets go, Challenge accepted. Let’s compare our record point by point. I can’t believe I’m doing it.

On Wednesday Harris challenged Trump to “say it to my face”.