In a boisterous homecoming after becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris returned to California on Sunday and reveled in being surrounded by supporters she has known for decades, while also warning of a bleak future for the nation if Democrats do not win in November.

“It’s good to be home,” Harris told about 700 people who roared and leaped to their feet as she walked on stage in a hotel ballroom in San Francisco. “This is a room full of dear, dear friends and longstanding supporters — folks I have known for my entire career. … We’ve been through a lot together. I want to thank everyone in here for your love and longstanding support and friendship and for your dedication to this country.”

The mood at the fundraiser was warm and optimistic — one woman in the front row waved a sign that said “Make America Joyful Again.” But Harris turned serious when she argued that fundamental rights such as healthcare, same-sex marriage and abortion are at stake in the race against former President Trump.

“We know what we need to do — we need to knock on doors, we need to register folks to vote, we need to get people to the polls. And every day matters,” she said. “That’s why we’re going to win, but let’s not take anything for granted.”

The event, which drew House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Rep. Barbara Lee, San Francisco Giants Chief Executive Larry Baer and a slew of other elected officials and donors, raised $13 million in the city that laid the foundation for Harris’ political career. Tickets cost between $3,300 and $500,000.

Harris worked as a prosecutor and a City Hall attorney in San Francisco before being elected district attorney in 2003, which served as a springboard to her later roles as state attorney general and then U.S. senator.

“This is a good day when we welcome Kamala Harris back home to California,” said Pelosi, who introduced the vice president. “She makes us all so proud, she brings us so much joy, she gives us so much hope.”

The event had the feel of a family reunion. Harris’ niece’s young children posed for pictures in front of a large Harris/Walz campaign sign on the stage. She called out several attendees from the stage, showering the most attention on Newsom. She reminisced about the day in 2004 when they took their oath of office in San Francisco, she as district attorney and he as mayor, and also their work marrying gay couples that year.

“I have known Gavin as a friend and colleague for so, so many years,” she said. “I want to thank you in front of all of our friends who are here for being an extraordinary leader of California and the nation.”

The event capped a whirlwind three weeks in the presidential campaign, with President Biden announcing he would not seek reelection, Democrats quickly coalescing around the vice president as their nominee and Harris selecting Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

In Biden’s first interview since he announced he would not seek another term, he said his decision was driven by the importance of beating Trump, the concerns among some members of the House and the Senate that he could harm their chances and that his candidacy could “be a real distraction.”

“The critical issue for me still, it’s not a joke, maintaining this democracy,” he said on an interview that aired on CBS on Sunday. While “it’s a great honor being president, I think I have an obligation to the country to do what I — the most important thing you can do — and that is, we must — we must — we must defeat Trump.”

Harris and Walz spent last week barnstorming battleground states — events that have drawn large crowds.

“Folks are coming to these events and they’re bringing with them so much joy. People are singing and they’re dancing in the aisles long before we get there,” Harris said. “They’re showing up not only because we must beat Donald Trump, they’re showing up because they believe in our country and our freedom.”

On Saturday, the Democrats collected the endorsement of the powerful Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas, and Harris announced she supported not taxing tips — an immensely popular proposal among service industry workers and one Trump backed in June.

“Copy Cat Kamala directly plagiarized President Trump’s No Tax on Tips policy proposal to let hard-working service workers keep more of their own hard-earned money,” the Republican’s campaign said in a statement.

Sunday’s fundraiser also took place four years from the day Biden selected her to be his running mate, months after Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign sputtered out.

“It’s been the best decision I’ve made,” Biden wrote in a fundraising appeal. “Kamala’s sharp. She’s tough. She’s going to make one hell of a president.”

California Republicans chose the location of Sunday’s fundraiser to cast doubt on Democratic leadership and point out dysfunction in San Francisco.

“For anyone unsure of what a Harris presidency would look like, take some time to tour her hometown where crime is running rampant, homelessness is visible on seemingly every street corner, and storefronts and office spaces sit empty as businesses close and people move away with no plans to return,” said state GOP chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson in a statement.

Given California’s deep blue tilt, it will not be contested in November. But it is home to so many wealthy donors that it provides the most campaign cash to candidates on both sides of the aisle. The GOP’s vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, recently headlined two fundraisers in the state.

On Tuesday, Walz will be in Los Angeles to address the AFSCME convention, the union that represents 1.4 million workers, including nurses, corrections officers and child-care providers. He is also expected to attend a fundraiser Tuesday in Newport Beach, the same day Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff raises money at an event in Los Angeles.

Attendee Susie Tompkins Buell, the co-founder of Esprit and The North Face who has known Harris since the 1990s, said she could not recall the last time she had seen this much energy among Democrats, which she attributed to Harris’ candidacy as well as the “danger to our country from within” posed by the prospect of Trump winning another term.

“Kamala’s youth and positive energy is like a fresh gust of a cool breeze on a sweltering, humid day. So refreshing and hopeful,” said Tompkins Buell, whose husband served as Harris’ finance chair during her district attorney and attorney general campaigns.

“She has been an important part of our community for years,” she added. “I am so impressed by her consistency. She is very confident in who she is and her style has always been the same, just improved. It’s all impressive.”

Former President Trump has had a number of legal victories in recent weeks, putting a pause on a majority of cases and delaying others that could have complicated his campaigning during the general election season. 

The Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States last month that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts in office but not for unofficial acts. The high court left it to the lower court to determine exactly where the line between official and unofficial is.

“The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,” the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts states. “That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party.”

The question of presidential immunity stemmed from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 case against Trump. Trump pleaded not guilty to those charges. That trial was put on hold in a lower court pending the Supreme Court’s ruling, which wiped out any charges related to official presidential acts.

That case has been returned to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Smith requested a delay to amend and prepare his argument in the case, following the Supreme Court ruling. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted Smith’s request. A joint status report is now due Aug. 30 and a status conference is now set for Sept. 5. 

TRUMP IMMUNITY CASE: SUPREME COURT RULES EX-PRESIDENTS HAVE SUBSTANTIAL PROTECTION FROM PROSECUTION

The Supreme Court’s ruling then prompted Trump’s lawyers to request that the former president’s sentencing be delayed in New York v. Trump. He was found guilty on all counts of falsifying business records in the first degree after an unprecedented criminal trial stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation. 

TRUMP TOUTS SUPREME COURT’S PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY RULING AS ‘BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND FOR DEMOCRACY’

The sentencing was originally scheduled for July 11, before the Republican National Convention, where Trump was set to be formally nominated as the GOP presidential nominee. Judge Juan Merchan agreed to delay and said a hearing on the matter would take place Sept. 18. 

Donald Trump and Jack Smith  (Getty Images)

But days later, Trump’s lawyers asked Merchan to overturn the former president’s guilty verdict in New York v. Trump.

Trump attorneys cited the Supreme Court ruling, saying the court should “dismiss the indictment and vacate the jury’s verdict based on violations of the Presidential immunity doctrine and the Supremacy Clause.” In the formal motion, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche pointed to the Supreme Court’s immunity decision and argued certain evidence of “official acts” should not have been admitted during the trial.

TRUMP REQUESTS NY JUDGE OVERTURN GUILTY VERDICT, INDICTMENT AFTER SCOTUS IMMUNITY RULING

Specifically, Blanche argued that testimony from former White House officials and employees was inappropriately admitted during trial. 

Blanche argued Bragg “violated the Presidential immunity doctrine by using similar official-acts evidence in the grand jury proceedings that gave rise to the politically motivated charges in this case.” 

A ruling on the motion is pending. 

JUDGE DISMISSES TRUMP’S FLORIDA CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE

Days later, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Smith’s classified records case against Trump. 

Trump had faced charges related to alleged improper retention of classified records at Mar-a-Lago. He pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony counts from Smith’s probe, including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements. 

But Cannon dismissed the case altogether, ruling Smith was unlawfully appointed and funded, citing the appointments clause in the Constitution. 

The U.S. Supreme Court, Nov. 15, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)

The appointments clause states, “Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States be appointed by the President subject to the advice and consent of the Senate, although Congress may vest the appointment of inferior officers in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” 

Smith, however, was never confirmed by the Senate. He is appealing the ruling. 

TRUMP APPEALS $454M NY CIVIL FRAUD JUDGMENT

Meanwhile, in Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis had charged Trump with crimes related to alleged 2020 election interference. Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts. 

The judge in that case dismissed six of the charges against Trump, saying Willis failed to allege sufficient detail. 

The case also was thrown into limbo when it was revealed Willis reportedly had an “improper affair” with Nathan Wade, a prosecutor she hired to help bring the case against Trump. Wade later resigned his position.

Last month, the Georgia Court of Appeals paused the proceedings until it hears the case to disqualify Willis in October, yet another major setback for Willis. 

Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis (Getty Images)

Last week, the Georgia Court of Appeals said it would hear Trump’s argument to have Willis disqualified on Dec. 5, a month after the 2024 presidential election. 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court ruling could be applied by Trump attorneys in several civil cases he has been fighting. 

In the civil defamation case brought against him by columnist E. Jean Carroll, Trump was ordered to pay more than $83 million in damages after he denied allegations he raped her in the 1990s. 

Carroll alleged Trump raped her at the Bergdorf Goodman department store across from Trump Tower in Manhattan in 1996. 

The jury found Carroll was injured as a result of statements Trump made while in the White House in June 2019. 

Trump’s denial came while he was president during a press gaggle at the White House. Trump attorneys could say the denial came as part of an official presidential act. 

His denial resulted in Carroll slapping Trump with a defamation suit, claiming his response caused harm to her reputation. 

Trump is also appealing the civil fraud ruling that demanded he pay more than $450 million after a lawsuit brought against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump’s legal team this week filed paperwork with a mid-level appeals court, calling the ruling “unconstitutional.”

On the same day that former President Trump claimed before a national gathering of Black journalists that Vice President Kamala Harris “was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn, and she became a Black person,” his running mate Sen. JD Vance accused Harris of being a “phony” who “grew up in Canada” (she attended high school in Montreal) and used “a fake Southern accent” at a rally.

Both men’s accusations sound eerily like those leveled against the rapper Drake by his fellow hip-hop titan Kendrick Lamar (and many others) in a rap beef whose effects linger. Drake has been accused of being a “colonizer” whose Canadian identity and eager embrace of various aspects and accents of a wide range of Black culture make him racially suspect.

Such arguments, whether made by racially troubled white men or Black icons, deny the complexity and diversity of Blackness.

Trump and Vance have little understanding of and less respect for the multiracial strains and complicated cultural mixtures of Black identity. Harris has from the start acknowledged her Indian heritage and her Jamaican roots. In our national context, biracial Blackness has always covered a multitude of skin types, light or dark, Caucasian or Indian and lots more besides.

Millions of Black Americans, because of the history of slavery conservatives tend to ignore, have all sorts of ethnic blood in their veins and all sorts of figures in their family trees — a grandfather who was Native American rests on one branch, a great grandmother who was Irish on another.

The one-drop rule of Black identity reflects the compulsion to reduction in American racial politics: Each body genetically shaped by white and Black ancestors has been viewed as tainted and inferior and labeled as Black. The same is often true for Black bodies mixed with Latinx and Asian identities.

Nonetheless, many mixed-race folks proudly tout their one-drop Black identity. Harris’ Indian mother understood she was rearing Black daughters, however often they dressed in saris and visited India. Like millions of Black folks, she understood Blackness’ diverse expressions.

Trump’s argument that Harris pivoted from her Indian to her Black identity also flies in the face of the facts of Harris’ biography, her education at Howard University and her affiliation with the Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. Trump’s narrative that Black people pimp their race for social gain appeals to those who believe that Black progress comes at the expense of white prosperity. Vance’s vacuous turn of phrase reflects his faux shrill-billy white resentment of Harris’ cosmopolitan Blackness.

Ironically, that cosmopolitan vision of Blackness is at the heart of the Lamar and Drake dustup. Their kerfuffle — playing out fiercely this spring in a series of releases — is a battle over cultural cachet, racial authenticity and group pride. And it exposes a provincialism that undercuts the global currents of hip-hop.

In his hit “Not Like Us,” Lamar accuses Drake of being a “colonizer” because Drake supposedly “run[s]” to Atlanta to partner with some of the paragons of its trap music to bolster his Blackness. Lamar’s argument echoes long-standing criticisms that Drake’s biracial Canadian roots render him suspect as a bona fide Black artist. Drake’s artistic experimentation with different accents and musical genres has prompted many to claim, as Vance did with Harris, that Drake is a phony.

Lamar’s beef with Drake is rooted in a parochial, claustrophobic vision of Blackness.

Drake grew up in Toronto the son of a Jewish Canadian mother; he spent summers in Memphis, Tenn., with his Black American musician father. His artistic tastes were deeply influenced by a wide swath of the Black diaspora — Afro-Caribbeans, Londoners, American Southerners, especially Memphians, and Torontonians. The multicultural makeup of Toronto, with its sizable Italian, Portuguese, Jamaican and Filipino immigrant populations, also fed his musical appetite.

The argument that Drake is somehow a culture vulture who appropriates varieties of Black culture misunderstands not only his influences but hip-hop as an art form with universal reach. Drake’s critics seek to confine it, and Black culture in general, to the United States, which received far fewer Black folks in the slave trade than, say, Peru, Mexico, Brazil and Jamaica.

Oddly enough, the attempt to define him as a colonizer overlooks how Black people in the United States often believe that our Blackness is superior to that of other Black people, itself a colonial view that is far more problematic than anything of which Drake might be accused. And given that Canada offered a prominent pathway to freedom for those who escaped American slavery, it is utterly bizarre to paint Drake as somehow alien or an enemy of hip-hop because he is Canadian and not from Compton or Detroit.

At a Trump rally in Charlotte, N.C., a white female commentator sought to remind Black Americans that Harris “is not one of you.” Lamar’s “Not Like Us” is unfortunately propelled by much the same limiting racial logic. As we fight to expel the racially troubling ideas and mischaracterizations Trump and Vance voice about Kamala Harris, Black folk must be careful not to permit those very same ideas in through the back door of our culture.

Michael Eric Dyson is a professor of African American studies at Vanderbilt University and the author, most recently, of “Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America.”