Vice President Harris delivers commencement address to West Point graduates

Vice President Kamala Harris described to West Point graduates Saturday the most significant challenges they would face.

Ms. Harris became the first woman to deliver a commencement address at the graduation ceremony at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, warning the 950 graduates they were “an increasingly unsettled world where long-standing principles are at risk.”

“A once-in-a-century global pandemic took millions of lives and disrupted life for billions more.  America ended our longest war.  And Russia launched the first major ground war in Europe since World War Two,” she said.

Ms. Harris said that in Ukraine, “Russia’s aggression is an attack on the lives and freedom of the Ukrainian people and an attack on international rules and norms that have served as the foundation of international security and prosperity for generations.”

She said China is “rapidly modernizing its military and threatening both the freedom of the seas and rules of international commerce” and that “autocrats have become bolder, the threat of terrorism persists, and an accelerating climate crisis continues to disrupt lives and livelihoods.”

Ms. Harris called each a “threat to global stability and security.”

The Vice President avoided politically charged rhetoric in her remarks, unlike President Biden when he addressed Howard University last week.