WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris delivered her closing statement against the backdrop of the White House on Tuesday evening, urging voters to support her candidacy over that of “unstable” Republican nominee Donald Trump.
The 30-minute speech on the Ellipse took place at the same location where then-President Trump held a rally nearly four years ago before his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol. Harris emphasized Democrats’ core argument that another term for the former president would pose a threat to the country’s future.
“This election is more than just an election between two parties and two different candidates,” Harris said. “It is a decision about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American or one ruled by chaos and division.”
Harris recalled the idea of the United States as “born when we snatched freedom from a petty tyrant.” Since then, Americans have fought to protect and expand those freedoms for generations, from those who marched in the civil rights movement to the troops who stormed the beaches of Normandy, she said.
“You didn’t do this just to see us bend to the will of another little tyrant,” she said. “We are not a vessel for the plans of would-be dictators.”
Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said in a statement that Trump’s “final argument to the American people is simple: Kamala broke it; He’ll fix it.”
In the crowd of tens of thousands of rally attendees was LaShaun Martin, 52, of Prince George’s County, Maryland, who said she was voting for Harris because the vice president was “incredibly positive.”
“It was for all people, Republicans and Democrats,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what walk of life you come from. She really wants to represent you and whatever you need to be a wealthy person.”
One week until election day
Harris’ speech came just a week before voting ended on November 5, following a historic campaign that began with it President Joe Biden withdrew from the race after a catastrophic one debate this summer.
Biden’s support for Harris and broad Democratic support across the country forced Republicans to rethink their approach to the campaign as Democrats shifted their focus from the policies Biden wanted to champion to those essential to Harris.
In her remarks, Harris rebuked Trump and his supporters for their derogatory comments about immigrants living in the country illegally, a key plank of his campaign.
“Politicians must stop treating immigration as an issue to scare votes in an election,” Harris said. “And instead see it as the serious challenge that it is and that we must finally solve together.”
Harris promised to work with Congress on immigration policy and a path to citizenship for farm workers and for the more than 500,000 children brought into the country without authorization. They are known as Dreamers and participate in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Harris addressed several of her key policy issues, including housing affordability, nationwide access to abortion, a ban on price gouging at grocery stores and expanding the child tax credit.
Turn to the undecided
Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler had a preview of the speech early TuesdayHe told reporters that the vice president would speak directly to undecided voters’ “sense of frustration and exhaustion with the way our politics have evolved under the Trump era – and give them directly a vision that something “It is possible that something is different.”
Trump appeared on Sunday a six-hour campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, leading to bipartisan condemnation of a comedian who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash in the middle of the ocean.”
Before Harris’ Tuesday speech, Trump gave remarks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, accusing them of trying to divide the country and seeking to distance themselves from the racist and vulgar comments made by the comedian and other speakers during the rally.
Trump did not answer questions but told ABC News earlier in the day that he had not heard the comedian’s comments.
“I don’t know him,” Trump said. “Someone put him up there.”
With the presidential race essentially undecided, Harris and Trump have focused their final campaign on the crucial swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Harris promised the crowd during her speech that if elected, she would protect the institutions and democratic ideals that are the bedrock of American law. She also criticized Trump’s comments in which he called Democrats an “enemy from within.”
“The fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them an enemy within,” Harris said. “They are family, neighbors, classmates, colleagues, they are fellow Americans, and as Americans we rise and fall together.”
Time to turn the page
Harris said the country needs to move beyond the ever-increasing polarization that she described as a hallmark of Trump’s influence on American politics.
“Donald Trump has spent a decade dividing the American people and making them fear one another,” Harris said. “That’s him.”
In her pitch to undecided voters, Harris offered an opportunity to put the Trump era behind her.
“It’s time to leave the drama and the conflict, the fear and the division behind,” she said. “It is time for a new generation of leadership in America and I stand ready to offer that leadership as the next President of the United States.”
That leadership, she said, will seek to build on bipartisan work.
“I promise to look for common ground and common-sense solutions to make your life better. I’m not interested in scoring political points. I want to make progress,” she said. “I am committed to listening to the experts, those who will be affected by the decisions I make and the people who disagree with me. Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy.”
During their speech, protesters called for an arms embargo on U.S. military weapons sent to Israel as part of the war with Hamas. Have several senators also called for an arms embargo.
“Stop arming Israel. Now arms embargo,” one protester said before being led out.
The death toll of more than 43,000 Palestinians In the Gaza Strip, Muslims, Arab Americans and anti-war Democrats have split within the party, according to health authorities there. It spurred the Uncommitted National Movement which sent 30 delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer.
After Harris’ speech, nearly 100 pro-Palestinian protesters surrounded an exit at the campaign rally.
Harris supporters gather
The campaign’s finale in Washington, DC was expected to attract more than 50,000 supporters. according to the local NBC affiliate. The Harris Campaign appreciated 75,000 spectators came.
There were speeches from supporters like a mother who had access to affordable insulin for her son because of the Affordable Care Act; a farming couple from Pennsylvania who were previously Trump voters; and Craig Sicknick, the brother of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after the insurrection at the US Capitol.
“[Trump] “I incited the crowd to riot while my brother and his colleagues put their lives at risk,” said Craig Sicknick. “Now Mr. Trump is promising to pardon the convicted criminals who attacked our Capitol, killed my brother, and injured over 140 other officers. That’s just wrong.”
The Justice Department has filed charges more than 1,500 defendants in the attack on January 6th.
Craig Sicknick endorsed Harris, whom he called a “real leader.”
Family farmers Bob and Kristina Lange of Malvern, Pennsylvania, said they are lifelong Republicans but would vote for Harris in this election.
“It’s very clear that Donald Trump isn’t about helping hard-working people like us,” Bob Lange said. “He is too focused on revenge and retaliation to care about what we need. We deserve better.”
The couple was featured in multiple digital displays The target group is rural voters in Pennsylvania.
Story and suspense
Attendees from Illinois and local residents made their way to the Ellipse for the speech.
Tiffany Norwood, 56, of Washington, D.C., said she attended the rally with her 87-year-old mother, Mary Ann Norwood, “because of the history, the excitement.”
“I feel like we need something different in the United States, and she is it,” said Tiffany Norwood, who identified herself as an entrepreneur. “Your plan for the economy, for the future, for women, for everyone. I love the fact that it’s a big umbrella that encompasses the melting pot of the United States.”
Some participants weren’t aged enough to vote, such as 13-year-old Grace Ledford from Champaign, Illinois.
The teenager said her first political rally felt “like a big party.”
“Kamala would be a great president because, one, she’s a woman and she’s African American,” she said. “Many male presidents don’t understand how hard it is to be a woman, especially Trump.”
Daniel Nyquist, 79, of Rockville, Maryland, stood in the crowd wearing a hat that read “Make America Less Hateful.”
“It’s the alternative to Trump’s theme,” Nyquist said, pointing to his hat. “He is a big promoter of hate and this is intended to counteract that.”
