At a star-studded online rally with Oprah Winfrey, Harris discusses abortion rights, immigration and gun ownership

By Ebony Davis and Fredreka Schouten, CNN

(CNN) — Vice President Kamala Harris sought to capitalize on the star power of Oprah Winfrey and a host of Hollywood celebrities to help her win over persuadable voters during an online rally Thursday night that ranged from participants’ searing accounts of personal loss and trauma to the Democrat’s unguarded remark about her own gun ownership.

During the “Unite for America” event in Michigan, Harris also reflected on the change that Winfrey said she and others had observed in the vice president once she became the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer.

“It seems to us that something happened to you the moment Joe Biden, President Biden, stepped aside and withdrew his candidacy, that a veil or something dropped, and you just stepped into your power,” Winfrey said.

“We each have those moments in our lives where it’s time to step up,” Harris responded, adding that she felt a “sense of purpose,” given the stakes of November’s election.

The event sought to capitalize on the skills and star power of Winfrey, who delivered her coveted endorsement of Harris at last month’s Democratic National Convention. At times, the night evoked Winfrey’s long-running talk show, with Harris taking questions from the media mogul and listening to members of the invited live audience gathered in a suburb of Detroit. Celebrities, ranging from Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts to comedian Chris Rock, chimed in virtually.

The livestream was geared, in part, at mobilizing grassroots activity on Harris’ behalf in the hopes of edging past former President Donald Trump in what Harris campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon told the audience remains a “margin-of-error race.”

Before the event kicked off, Harris’ campaign said that nearly 200,000 people had RSVP’d through the official sign-up – with even more expected to join on the array of social media platforms on which it was streaming.

A discussion of reproductive rights included Hadley Duvall, an abortion rights advocate who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather when she was 12 – as well as members of the family of Amber Nicole Thurman, a Georgia mother who ProPublica reported died in 2022 from a treatable infection due to delays to her medical care stemming from the state’s restrictive abortion law.

Shanette, Thurman’s mother, spoke publicly about the case for the first time during Thursday’s livestream, saying, “Initially, I did not want the public to know my pain.”

“I wanted to go through in silence, but I realized that it was selfish. I want you to know, Amber was not a statistic, she was loved by a family, a strong family,” she added.

Harris, who is set to travel to Georgia on Friday to deliver remarks on women’s reproductive rights, apologized to Thurman’s family.

“I’m just so sorry,” the vice president said. “And the courage that you all have shown is extraordinary, because also you just learned about how it is that she died. … And Amber’s mom shared with me that the word over and over again in her mind, is preventable. Preventable. That word keeps coming to her.”

Harris and the livestream audience also heard from 15-year-old Natalie Griffith, a student from Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, who was shot twice during a campus attack earlier this month.

Natalie, who had a cast on her left arm, was joined by her parents, Marilda and Doug, who demanded more action. “We have a job, that job is to protect our children,” an impassioned Marilda Griffith said. “We have to stop it.”

Harris, who discussed owning a gun during her recent debate with Trump, reiterated Thursday that she believes it is a “false choice” to suggest someone is either in favor of the Second Amendment or wants to take everyone’s guns away.

Winfrey noted that she had not known that Harris was a gun owner – prompting an off-the-cuff quip from the vice president.

“If somebody breaks in my house, they’re getting shot,” Harris said.

“I probably should not have said that,” she added, laughing, “but my staff will deal with that later.”

Harris also faced questions about some of the difficult policy issues confronting her in this contest – ranging from inflation to dealing with illegal immigration.

Asked by an audience member about her plan to “strengthen” the border, she outlined the measures to improve border security that had been included in a bipartisan congressional bill that Trump helped to kill.

Under questioning from Winfrey, Harris said she would work to revive the legislation and sign it into law should she win the White House.

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