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Former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris described the government of Donald Trump on Tuesday as "the most ruthless, corrupt, and incompetent that the United States has ever experienced," during her participation in the tenth edition of the Austrian World Summit in Vienna, Austria.
The trip to the Austrian capital was the first that Harris took abroad since losing the presidential election in November 2024 to Trump.
The statements were made during a debate with actor and former Republican governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger regarding climate policies, when he was asked if the judicial investigations against Democratic politicians - such as the current governor of California, Gavin Newsom - were politically motivated.
"I won't say 'I told you so' because that would be somewhat rude, so I prefer not to mention it; but the reality is that many of us predicted it. It didn't take much creativity, as he revealed most of what he would do later, including that he would go after his political opponents by using the Justice Department," Harris responded, as quoted by Telemundo 51.
It is important to remember that Newsom, a likely Democratic candidate for the upcoming presidential elections, has reported that federal agents have been knocking on the doors of his friends, family, and former employees in an “unfounded” investigation against him and his wife by the Trump administration.
Former Vice President Kamala asserted that even before the 2024 elections, she anticipated the direction the current administration would take, and this conviction leads her to believe in a Democratic victory in the November 2026 midterm elections, which will involve the renewal of the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate.
"And for that reason, I have no doubt that we will win the midterm elections," he stated.
To support this forecast, Harris recalled that in 2024 one third of the electorate voted for Trump, another third voted for the Democrats, and the remaining third abstained. "This means that two thirds of American voters did not vote for this," he concluded.
Another target of her criticism was the war against Iran initiated by Trump, which she labeled as a "chosen war" that Americans did not want and asserted would not have happened if she had won in 2024.
"This is a president who has shown that he only thinks of himself," he denounced.
Harris linked the conflict to the rising cost of gasoline, warning that Americans have been spending an additional $500 per month, and pointed out that the average citizen is just $400 away from bankruptcy in the face of any unexpected expense.
Regarding the memorandum of understanding that Trump and French President Macron announced on that same Tuesday to end the conflict with Iran, Harris predicted that Trump "will declare a victory," but warned that the final outcome will be similar to the nuclear agreement pushed by former President Barack Obama in 2015, under which Iran agreed to reduce its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
Harris's statements come amid a backdrop of increasing political tension in Washington.
The Trump administration created in May 2026 a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim to have been targeted by the Department of Justice during the Biden era, a move that Democrats criticized as a political use of public funds.
Harris, who is still considering whether to run in the 2028 presidential elections, concluded her speech in Vienna with a warning about the state of American democracy under the current administration.
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