Kamala Harris told Americans on Tuesday that Donald Trump's efforts to sow division and fear are "not who we are" as she reinforced her campaign's closing argument by delivering it from the same site where the Republican former president spoke before the Capitol riot in 2021. One week out from Election Day, the vice president used the address from the grassy Ellipse near the White House to pledge to Americans that she would work to improve their lives while arguing that her Republican opponent is only in it for himself. Trump "has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other: That's who he is," Harris said. "But America, I am here tonight to say: That's not who we are."
"Look, we know who Donald Trump is. He is the person who stood at this very spot nearly four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election," she said. But Harris did not deliver a treatise on democracy—a staple of President Biden's own attempts to draw a contrast with Trump. Instead she aimed to make a broader case for why voters should reject Trump and consider what she offers, while introducing herself to voters still clamoring for more information and encouraging the crowd to visualize their divergent futures hanging in the balance on Election Day, the AP reports.
- "He has an enemies list of people he intends to prosecute," Harris said. "He says one of his highest priorities is to set free the violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers on Jan. 6. Donald Trump intends to use the United States military against American citizens who simply disagree with him. People he calls 'the enemy from within.' This is not a candidate for president who is thinking about how to make your life better."
- "Unlike Donald Trump, I don't believe people who disagree with me are the enemy," Harris said. "He wants to put them in jail. I'll give them a seat at my table. And I pledge to be a president for all Americans. To always put country above party and above self."
- Her speech drew a massive crowd to Washington, with an overflow crowd spilling under the Washington Monument on the National Mall.
- Also central to her message: positioning herself as a "new generation" of leader after Trump and even her current boss, Biden. "It doesn't have to be this way," Harris said. "We have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms. It is time to turn the page on the drama and the conflict and confusion."
- Harris linked this election to the American Revolution at the end of her speech, the BBC reports. She said the country was born when "we wrested freedom from a petty tyrant," and Americans didn't fight in conflicts like World War II "only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant." "Let us fight for this beautiful country we love," she said.
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- Ahead of Harris' speech, Trump used remarks to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Tuesday morning to accuse Harris of closing with a message that doesn't address everyday Americans' day-to-day struggles and kitchen-table concerns. He said Harris keeps "talking about Hitler, and Nazis, because her record's horrible."
- Urged by some allies to apologize for racist comments made by speakers at his weekend rally, Trump took the opposite approach on Tuesday, saying it was an "honor to be involved" in such an event and calling the scene a "lovefest"—the same term he has used to describe the Capitol riot, the AP reports.
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