SAN FRANCISCO — Former Vice President Kamala Harris used a high-profile speech to sharply criticize President Donald Trump amid speculation about whether she will mount another presidential campaign or opt to run for California governor.

In her most extensive public remarks since leaving office in January after her defeat to Trump, Harris said Wednesday that she’s inspired by Americans fighting Trump’s agenda despite threats to their freedom or livelihood.

“Instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals,” Harris said a day after Trump reached 100 days in office.

Before Wednesday, she barely mentioned Trump by name since conceding in November.

In a 15-minute speech, she spoke to the anxiety and confusion that have gripped many of her supporters since Trump took office but discouraged despair.

“They are counting on the notion that if they can make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others. But what they have overlooked is that fear is not the only thing that’s contagious,” Harris said. “Courage is contagious.”

Trump went after Harris in a campaign-style rally Tuesday marking his 100th day in office. He sarcastically called her a “great border czar” and a “great candidate” and repeated some of the applause lines he routinely delivered during the campaign.

Harris cautioned Americans against viewing Trump’s administration as merely chaotic, casting it instead as a “high-velocity event,” the culmination of extensive work on the right to remake government.

“A vessel is being used for the swift implementation of an agenda that has been decades in the making,” she said. “An agenda to slash public education. An agenda to shrink government and then privatize its services. All while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us.”

Harris spoke at the 20th anniversary gala for Emerge America, which recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office.

She is ramping up her public presence as Democrats search for a path forward since November’s election, in which Republicans also won control of Congress.

She praised Democrats who have been especially prolific in criticizing Trump, name-dropping lawmakers diverse in their ideology and style: Sens. Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders along with Reps. Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

She didn’t take a stand in one of her party’s central divides, neither calling for mass mobilization like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker nor questioning Democratic positioning on key issues like California Gov. Gavin Newsom. “I’m not here tonight to offer all the answers,” Harris said. “But I am here to say this: You are not alone.”

But she warned that things will probably get worse before they get better: “The one check, the one balance, the one power that must not fail is the voice of the people.”