Harris Warns of Country Under Trump With 'No Guardrails'

Amid Democrats calling their convention one of joy all week in Chicago, presidential nominee Kamala Harris instead reverted to one of the most tried and true of messages since the dawn of political theater: fear.

Harris accepted her party's nomination for president Thursday night, warning of the bogeyman on the other side, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

"That's the fight we are in right now: a fight for America's future. This election is one of the most important in the life of our nation," Harris said at the outset of her speech.

After a first few minutes telling her origin story, an array of inspiration stemming from her mother's immigrant journey, Harris took aim at Trump.

Harris called Trump an "unserious man" before adding, "But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious."

Harris relitigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riots on Capitol Hill.

"Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol, where they assaulted law enforcement officers," she said.

"Consider what he intends to do if we give him power again. His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents, and anyone he sees as an enemy. His explicit intent to deploy our active military against our own citizens," she warned.

"Consider the power he will have — especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled he would be immune from criminal prosecution," she added, leaving out the part about "official acts" as president.

"Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails. And how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States, not to improve your life ... but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself," she added.

Harris again linked Trump to the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, a vision for a conservative federal government put forward by the think tank that he has repeatedly disavowed and denounced as "extremist."

"We know what a second Trump term would look like. It's all laid out in 'Project 2025,'"

Harris told voters they have a chance to chart a "new way forward" this November.

Harris' address in Chicago caps a whirlwind eight weeks in American politics and manifests the stunning reversal of Democratic fortunes just 75 days until Election Day. Party leaders, who had publicly despaired over President Joe Biden's candidacy after his widely panned debate performance against Trump, were jubilant both at the historic nature of Harris' candidacy and their buoyed hopes for this November.

"With this election, our nation has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past," Harris said, "a chance to chart a new way forward — not as members of any one party or faction, but as Americans."

Harris is the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to accept a major party's presidential nomination, and if elected, she would be the first female U.S. president. And when she took the stage, she was looking out across a sea of female delegates and Democratic supporters wearing white — the color of women's suffrage — the movement that culminated with American women securing the right to vote in 1920.

Just a month after Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed her to replace him atop the Democratic ticket, Harris was looking to make the most of her chance to define herself to voters on her own terms before an audience of millions.

Harris spoke briefly to the convention on Monday, when she thanked Biden and celebrated his record as president, and again on Tuesday, when the beginning of her rally in Milwaukee was streamed into the convention hall after Democrats reaffirmed their nomination of her with a state-by-state roll call.

Among others who spoke before Harris on Thursday were Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer; North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper; civil rights leader Al Sharpton; and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Sharpton highlighted the historic nature of Harris' nomination, noting that 52 years ago, he was a youth director for former Rep. Shirley Chisholm's 1972 Democratic primary bid for the White House. Chisholm, who was Black, died in 2005, but Sharpton drew cheers when he declared, "I know she's watching us tonight as a Black woman stands up to accept the nomination for president of the United States."

Former Reps. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who has bucked his party to oppose Trump, and Gabby Giffords, the Arizona Democrat who was nearly killed in a mass shooting in 2011, also spoke.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.