Angela Major / WPR Angela Major/WPR
Former Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at an event alongside moderator V Spehar, left, on Sunday, March 1, 2026, at the Orpheum Theater in Madison, Wis.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, right, with moderator V Spehar. 'It is right to feel a sense of outrage when we recognize in the last 48 hours, Donald Trump has dragged America into a war that we don’t want,' Harris said.
The line of ticket holders waiting to see former Vice President Kamala Harris at the Orpheum Theater extended down State Street and onto West Johnson Street. Across the street from the theater, a small group of protesters waved a large Palestinian flag and held signs that read “Kamala Harris loves war” and “The Biden-Harris administration spent 24.9 billion dollars on genocide.”
The protesters are part of CODEPINK Madison, a local chapter of a national feminist group “working to end U.S. warfare and imperialism, support peace and protect human rights initiatives.”
Michael Freiman, the protester holding the “Kamala Harris loves war” sign, said his group was protesting Harris because they believe the Biden-Harris administration helped fund Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators extended the protest inside the Orpheum at the March 1 event, which was marketed as a “conversation” about 107 Days, Harris’s New York Times bestselling memoir about her fast-paced, and ultimately unsuccessful, presidential campaign in 2024. “Admit you funded a genocide!” one protester yelled at Harris, just about 10 minutes after she took the stage.
Many in the crowd, which numbered around 1,400 people, booed as event security escorted the protester out.
Harris addressed the moment: “We had a person here just shouting out for reasons that I think we can all connect with in terms of what we have seen, in terms of the atrocities of what has occurred in Gaza. I write about it in my book. I write about the fact that, frankly, our administration should have done more.”
Minutes later, another protester shouted, “Your administration didn’t only fund a genocide, it also funded ICE!” This protester was also booed and escorted out.
Harris did not respond to the second interruption, but later noted that “there are many takeaways in terms of the murders and terrorism” at the hands of ICE officers in Minneapolis, “including an obvious willingness to deploy federal agents to intimidate the people.” Harris said she believes “there is an agenda at play around the abuses that we’ve seen and the callous nature of brutality of what’s coming from [the Trump] administration” — an agenda Harris said is “about making people feel afraid.”
Harris encouraged the crowd not to feel powerless in moments such as these because “when you feel powerful, you are powerful.”
Event moderator V Spehar, an online journalist known for their reporting across social platforms as Under the Desk News, opened the conversation with Harris with a reference to the joint U.S.-Israel military attacks on Iran that began over the weekend.
“We know a lot of folks woke up this morning to the news of what’s going on in Iran and the seriousness of that moment, and we all just want Auntie to come pick us up from this horrible sleepover,” said Spehar. During Harris’s presidential campaign, she embraced the role of an “Auntie,” a reverential term used primarily in Black and South Asian communities to describe caregivers and community builders.
Harris did not immediately respond to Spehar's comment on Iran — and instead gave opening remarks and a shoutout to Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway — but later said, “It is right to feel a sense of outrage when we recognize in the last 48 hours, Donald Trump has dragged America into a war that we don’t want.
“We’ve lost three American troops as a result of this unauthorized war,” added Harris. “There are moments for reflection, but right now there is, I believe, also a moment for us to stand up, to speak out.”
Harris also denounced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — a federal bill that would require voters to present a passport or birth certificate to register to vote — and federal cuts to food assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Harris said she has seen estimates that there are up to tens of millions of voters who don’t have access to either a passport or a birth certificate, and believes the bureaucratic challenges associated with securing those documents “[build] in what are already disincentives to register to vote.”
Harris also shared a story about grocery shopping in Jackson, Mississippi, where she met a young mother of three whose SNAP benefits had been reduced. Harris said the mother commented on how “they keep saying the economy is doing so well,” and asked Harris, “Don’t they see me? Don’t they see what we are going through?”
After the event, Shawnteyana Johnson and Amara Williams stood outside the Orpheum snapping photos. They traveled from New York after the Harris stop they were planning to attend in South Carolina was rescheduled for April.
“It’s amazing, especially in this political climate, to see a Black woman who puts in effort to make the American people better,” said Williams. “My ancestors, my grandmother, weren’t able to do things like this. It’s breathtaking to see that.”
“She leads by example,” added Johnson. “She stayed in the fight. She continues to encourage everyone and remind us that we are all in this together.”
