Kamala Harris on Trump's Justice Department: 'It Now Stands on the Side of Discrimination'

Senator Kamala Harris delivered a speech at the Human Rights Campaign dinner on Saturday night that was both profoundly bleak and necessarily honest. Trump’s Justice Department, the California Democrat said, stands on “the side of discrimination instead of equality.”

“I believe this is a moment when our country is witnessing an assault on our deepest values and ideals,” she said at the LGBTQ advocacy group’s event in DC.

Her withering condemnation of Trump’s attack on LGBTQ rights was punctuated with a rather grim, but accurate, description of the American political landscape. “We have been reminded racism in this country is real. Sexism, anti-Semitism are real in this country. Homophobia and transphobia are real in this country. And we must speak that truth so we can deal with it,” she added.

Harris also singled out Roy Moore, the toxically bigoted Alabama Senate nominee who thinks the Supreme Court’s decision to approve same-sex marriage was worse than its decision to uphold slavery, and one of Trump’s transphobic judicial nominees.

“LGBTQ rights are under attack,” she said. “Under attack by a Senate nominee who thinks homosexuality should be illegal and a judicial nominee who says transgender children are proof of ‘Satan’s plan’ and under attack by a Commander in Chief who wants to ban transgender troops, who are willing to sacrifice their lives to defend our country.”