Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst convicted of disclosing classified information to WikiLeaks, released her first campaign video Sunday in her run for a US Senate seat in Maryland.
“We live in trying times – times of fear, of suppression, of hate,” Manning narrates over several clips of protesters clashing with police and of the Charlottesville rally last summer.
“We don’t need more or better leaders. We need someone willing to fight,” Manning continues as the video transitions from images of the House Chamber to images from the Women’s March.
“We need to stop asking them to give us our rights. They won’t support us. They won’t compromise,” Manning continues, as images of President Donald Trump meeting with the top Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress are shown.
“We need to stop expecting that our systems will somehow fix themselves. We need to actually take the reins of power from them,” Manning says as the video shows Manning for the first time, wearing all black and holding a single red rose. “We need to challenge them at every level. We need to fix this. We don’t need them anymore. We can do better. You’re damn right we got this.”
Manning is one of four Democratic candidates who have filed to run for Senate in Maryland. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin, 74, has not yet announced whether he would seek a third term in the Senate. His campaign committee has nearly $2 million in cash on hand, according to the FEC.
Manning was convicted in 2013 of stealing 750,000 pages of sensitive government documents and videos and leaking them to WikiLeaks, and received a sentence of 35 years in prison on 20 counts, including violating the Espionage Act. After the sentencing, Manning, who was then known as Bradley, came out as transgender and changed her first name to Chelsea.
President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence in January 2017 and Manning was released from prison in May 2017.
CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.