Kamala Harris’ Univision Town Hall: Five Key Takeaways

Vice President Kamala Harris addressed replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the 2024 Democratic ticket and criticized Donald Trump, her Republican opponent, during a town hall hosted by Univision.
On Thursday, Harris took questions from an audience of undecided voters in Las Vegas on the Spanish-language network, discussing topics such as immigration and health care.
The town hall took place amid Harris’ host of recent media appearances—which included a grilling on CBS’ 60 Minutes and more friendly sit-downs on the Call Her Daddy podcast and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The Univision event was a chance for Harris to appeal to Latino voters, especially those in swing states such as Nevada and Arizona. The demographic proved vital for the Democrats in 2020, but recent polls have suggested Harris is losing the Hispanic and Latino vote to Trump.
Reacting to the town hall, Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung told Newsweek: “Kamala Harris couldn’t even answer the most basic of questions, instead spewing out non-sensical word salads that prove she can’t run away from her disastrous record of skyrocketing inflation, an out-of-control border, and rampant crime that terrorizes communities across the country.”
Newsweek has contacted Harris’ campaign team for comment.
One undecided voter told Harris he was concerned about the way Biden appeared to have been “pushed aside” from being the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential candidate and asked Harris to clarify the nomination process.
“President Biden made a decision that I think history will show was probably one of the most courageous that a president could make, which is he decided to put country above his personal interest,” Harris replied.
“And he made that decision [and] within that same period of time supported my candidacy and urged me to run,” she continued, adding, “I believe that the stakes right now are extraordinarily high and potentially—some might say, historians have said—unprecedented.”
Harris criticized the “mis- and disinformation” that was spread in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which recently hit southeastern states, and during the preparations for Hurricane Milton, the powerful storm that made landfall in Florida on Wednesday.
The vice president made the remarks after an audience member asked about the federal government’s response to the hurricanes. Trump previously falsely suggested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was unable to fund a response to Hurricane Helene because the money was being spent on migrants. He also claimed that the Biden administration was denying relief to “Republican areas.”
“I have to stress that this is not a time for people to play politics,” Harris said.
She continued: “I started my career as a prosecutor, and when I worked doing that job of my goal of keeping people safe, I never asked a witness or a victim of crime: ‘Are you a Republican? Are you a Democrat?’ The only question I ever asked is, ‘Are you OK?’
“And sadly, we have seen over the last two weeks, since Hurricane Helene, and now in the immediate aftermath of Milton, where people are playing political games, suggesting that resources and support is only going to certain people based on a political agenda. And this is just not accurate.”
Addressing concerns that reproductive health care access could be further restricted, Harris told one audience member that her stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, is “going to have fewer rights than my mother-in-law in this year of our Lord 2024.”
“When we talk about what makes for what is right and what is wrong, I think we agree that there are certain decisions, especially over heart and home, that the government should just not be making for us,” Harris said.
“There are probably many people here and watching who rightly have made a decision that they do not believe in abortion,” she continued. “The point that I’m making is not about changing their mind about what’s right for them or their family. It’s simply saying the government shouldn’t be making this decision.”
One audience member, Ivett Castillo, tearfully described to Harris how her mother recently died. Castillo said her mother, who was born in Mexico but lived in the U.S. for most of her life, was unable to achieve legal status and receive the “type of care or service that she needed or deserved.”
Castillo then told Harris, “My question for you is, what are your plans, or do you have plans, to support that subgroup of immigrants who have been here their whole lives, or most of them, and have to live and die in the shadows?”
Harris did not directly answer the question, instead criticizing the “broken immigration system” and the Republicans who voted down a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.
The vice president also sought to comfort Castillo—having lost her own mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who had immigrated to the U.S. from India.
“You must remember your mother as she lived,” Harris said. “I have enough of a feeling about your strength that it probably comes from her to know she would want you to remember her as she lived and not as she died.”
She added: “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. And, you know, my mother came to the United States at the age of 19. She was by herself—came alone by herself. She raised my sister and me, Maya, and I know what it is like to have a hardworking mother who loves you and to lose that. But I know that her spirit is alive.”
After the town hall ended, Harris walked over to console Castillo again.
The final question of the town hall came from audience member Teresa Djedjro, who asked the vice president to name three virtues Trump possessed. Harris struggled to name three she believed the former president had.
She said: “I think Donald Trump loves his family, and I think that’s very important. I think family is one of the most important things that we can prioritize.
“But I don’t really know him, to be honest with you. I only met him one time, on the debate stage. I’ve never met him before, so I don’t really have much more to offer you.”
Trump is set to take part in a Univision town hall on October 16.
Update 11/10/24, 5:29 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from the Trump campaign.