Harris: Trump Is a ‘Tyrant’ Killing Capitalism to Stroke His ‘Fragile Ego’

On Monday night, former Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and once again unleashed a barrage of attacks against President Donald Trump, this time labeling him a “tyrant” for pressuring law firms, universities, and entertainment companies to change course. According to Harris, this push for accountability “destroys capitalism.”

Harris told Maddow, “I am a lifelong public servant, and but I’ve worked closely with the private sector over many years, and I always believed that if push came to shove, those titans of industry would be guardrails for our democracy, for the importance of sustaining democratic institutions. One by one by one, they have been silent. They have been, you know, yes, I use the word feckless. They’re it’s not like they’re going to lose their yacht or their house in the Hamptons. And here’s the thing. democracy sustains capitalism. Capitalism thrives in a democracy and right now we are dealing with, as I called him at my speech on the ellipse, a tyrant. We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That’s what we’re dealing with right now in Donald Trump.”

Her remarks strike at the heart of a deeper debate in America: who should hold power over our society? Harris suggests the “titans of industry” ought to serve as guardians of democracy—unelected CEOs and corporate elites acting as the ultimate referees in civic life. But history has shown the danger of outsourcing liberty to concentrated power, whether in government or boardrooms. For decades, corporate leaders have bent to fashionable causes, bowing to cultural activists and bureaucrats while sidelining the values of everyday Americans.

Harris went on, claiming, “These titans of industry are not speaking up. Perhaps it is because his threats and the way he has used the weight of the federal government to take out vengeance on his critics is something that they fear.”

That accusation glosses over an uncomfortable truth: under Trump, the weight of the federal government was scaled back. His administration cut taxes, slashed regulations, and worked to roll back bureaucratic control. The real examples of government weaponization—the IRS targeting political opponents, federal agencies pressuring social media companies to censor speech, or endless investigations aimed at political enemies—have overwhelmingly come from the progressive side of the aisle.

Still, Harris speculated further about corporate leaders’ motives: “Perhaps it is because they want to please him and nominate him for a Nobel prize. Perhaps it’s because they want a merger approved, or they want to avoid an investigation. But at some point, they’ve got to stand up for the sake of the people who rely on all of these institutions to have integrity and at some point be the guardrails against a tyrant who is using the federal government to execute his whim and fancy because of a fragile ego.”

Her framing is revealing. By painting Trump as a “tyrant,” Harris seeks to equate common-sense efforts to demand accountability with authoritarianism, while ignoring how progressive leaders have leaned on government and corporate influence to advance their agenda. When universities silence dissent, when corporations push ideological agendas, or when bureaucrats impose costly mandates on families and small businesses, those burdens fall squarely on ordinary Americans—not on the elites who can afford yachts and Hamptons estates.

At its core, this is the ongoing battle over who defines democracy. For conservatives, the answer is clear: the Constitution, the rule of law, and the sovereignty of the people—not corporate elites, not entrenched bureaucrats, and not politicians who redefine capitalism to suit their ideology. Harris’s remarks highlight a troubling trend: treating freedom as something to be managed from the top down, rather than preserved from the bottom up. That’s why her words matter—not just as a partisan jab at Trump, but as a window into how the left views power, liberty, and the role of government in America’s future.