As President Biden traveled to Charleston, South Carolina to deliver a powerful speech at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church – a venue that embodies the stakes of the 2024 election for the nation – DNC Chair Jaime Harrison took to the airwaves to highlight what’s on the line for voters this November as Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans work to undermine our democracy, rewrite history, and strip away our freedoms. 

Articles:

CNN: Jaime Harrison – now the Democratic National Committee chair but a former South Carolina state party chair and US Senate candidate – said that as a South Carolinian, Biden’s remarks are still “burnt” in his mind. “Joe Biden is going to walk out of South Carolina with strong support because the state knows him; the state knows how hard he’s fought for them,” Harrison said. 

Washington Examiner: Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said ahead of Biden’s speech that Black voters are concerned about their freedoms heading into a contentious election cycle. “This president is fighting for the freedom for folks to be able to go to that church, pray to their God, and do it without the threat of gun violence because somebody has some racial hatred,” [Harrison] stated. “Just the freedom to live your life, to take care of your kids in terms of their schools, having money in your pocket, and actually living the American dream.”

On the airwaves:

Chair Harrison on Morning Joe: “Joe Biden understands very, very clearly what this battle is all about and how core and how central Black folks are to this battle. When you think about everything he’s done – the first thing he did, even before he became the president of the United States: African American woman vice president, breaking through that glass ceiling, African American woman on the Supreme Court, breaking through that tradition to make sure that that voice was represented. So instead of having Black folks at the back of the bus, under Joe Biden – we are driving the bus.”

Chair Harrison on FOX Carolina: “We see the rhetoric that’s coming from Trump. We know from the four years that he was president, what he’s capable of and what he will do. He said that he wants to be a dictator from ‘day one.’ This is about freedom. So freedom of all Americans, and we understand that particularly [for] Black America, freedom has not always been here and we’re still fighting for that freedom. … Joe Biden has always fought for all of America’s people, regardless if you voted for him or not. I can’t say that about Donald Trump.”

Chair Harrison On NPR Morning Edition: “Donald Trump is a threat to that freedom. … The president got into this race because he said we were battling for the soul of this nation. When he saw that [Trump] was saying that fine people are on both sides when talking about the hatred we saw in Charlottesville. And so that hatred in Charlottesville was also just an extension of the hatred we saw at Mother Emanuel, in terms of the Confederate flag, in terms of believing white supremacy in this nation. And folks who understand that battle for that type of freedom, the freedom to live the American dream, to be treated equally, are the Black folks and particularly Black folks in South Carolina, where 40% of enslaved people came into this country through that port of Charleston. And so the president was there, reconnecting with folks that who have endured so much pain, but at the same time understood the joy of coming together as a community.”