GREEN BAY, Wis – Vice President Kamala Harris told supporters Thursday that she “stood up to veterans” in a brutal gaffe that capped off a long day of campaigning in Wisconsin.
Harris, 59, was in the middle of touting her tenure as California’s attorney general when she mistakenly bragged about standing up to America’s war heroes.
“I stood up to veterans, and stood up for — excuse me,” the vice president said, quickly correcting the error after grimacing.
Some in the crowd appeared to groan, while others laughed at the blunder.
“[I] stood up for veterans and students being scammed by big, for-profit colleges,” Harris clarified.
The event was held just across from Lambeau Field, the iconic home of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers.
A Harris campaign official said over 4,000 people attended the rally at the Resch Expo. The southern rock band Alabama was holding a concert at the arena next door around the time of Harris’ speech.
Jim Ridderbush, a local union leader, introduced Harris as “the president of the United States” before she took the stage — in another apparent gaffe.
The vice president’s speech touched on her policies aimed at the middle class, women, seniors and caregivers. It came after campaign events in Milwaukee and La Crosse earlier in the day.
Harris told her Green Bay supporters that her plan to expand Medicare to cover home health care for seniors, which experts warn will cost well north of her team’s $40 billion estimate, will take the burden off family members caring for their parents while raising young children or working.
“It’s about dignity, but the reality is it is expensive if you don’t have the ability to do it,” she said of caring for older loved ones. “It is expensive to try and bring somebody in, and far too many people have to quit their job to try and take care of their elderly relatives.”
“And that’s not right.”
Javier Ceniceros, 53, owns a maintenance and construction business in the Green Bay area. He told The Post that he attended the rally with his family because Harris “ is a better choice for us.”
“I don’t want another four years of Trump,” Ceniceros said, noting that as a small business owner, his top issue is health insurance, specifically preserving and improving on the Affordable Care Act.
“It’s great for small business owners,” he said.
Peg Vanbrice, a 71-year-old retiree from Green Bay, said that she is backing the vice president because Harris is “standing up for women, abortion, small businesses and day care.”
Vanbrice called Harris’ campaign promises for the middle class “exciting” and expressed a strong distaste for Trump’s character.
“It bothers me that if Trump wins it’s setting an example — if you lie, cheat, bully, assault, you can get the most powerful position in the world,” she said.
Violet Smale, a 22-year-old journalist in Green Bay and Harris supporter, argued that if the vice president wants to win Wisconsin, she’ll have to get “personal.”
“I want to hear something that will resonate with Wisconsin specifically — we’re a swing state,” Smale explained.
“She needs to keep the momentum going, and that will take something personal.”
The counties in and around Green Bay — Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago — all went for Trump in 2020 by at least a 4-point margin.
The latest RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Trump leading Harris in Wisconsin by only a 0.1 percentage point margin.
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