KAMALA HARRIS TOLD Americans to write the “next chapter” for their country and reject Donald Trump’s chaos and division as she delivered a powerful closing argument to voters against the glowing backdrop of the White House.
But the speech risked being overshadowed by a clumsy comment made by US President Joe Biden, where he appeared to refer to supporters of the Republican nominee as “garbage”.
At her rally, the Democratic US Vice President warned against Trump’s lust for “unchecked power” as she addressed a mass rally at the site where her Republican rival riled up a mob before the deadly 6 January 2021 assault on the US Capitol.
“This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power,” she said in the speech, exactly a week before Americans go to the polls in the most dramatic and divisive election of modern times.
But Harris then pivoted to an optimistic vision of the United States’ future, using the setting of the White House lit up against the night behind her as a symbolic pitch to show that she is ready for the presidency.
“America, I am here tonight to say: that’s not who we are,” Harris told the huge crowd of flag-waving supporters.
“Each of you has the power to turn the page, and start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.”
She said the vote in this election would “probably be the most important vote you ever cast”.
“This election is more than just a choice between two parties and two different candidates. It is a choice about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American, or ruled by chaos and division.”
Harris’s campaign claimed 75,000 people attended the rally. The number could not be immediately verified, but the crowd was unusually large in an election that has seen heavy enthusiasm on both sides.
Crowds stretched from the Ellipse, a park bordering the White House grounds where Harris spoke, all the way back to the Washington Monument, the obelisk towering over the National Mall.
Speaking from behind bulletproof screens next to blue signs saying “Freedom,” Harris warned that the election was a choice between a “country rooted in freedom for every American, or ruled by chaos and division.”
Harris reminded the crowd that Trump stood at the same spot nearly four years ago and “sent an armed mob” to the Capitol “to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election”.
After Trump urged supporters in a speech there to “fight like hell,” many then marched on the iconic domed seat of government to disrupt the certification of US President Joe Biden’s victory, in an assault that left 140 police officers wounded and shocked the world.
But while her speech began with the dramatic attack on Trump, she soon switched to a recap of her detailed plans to help financially struggling middle-class Americans.
She got one of the biggest cheers when she referred to Republicans seeking to curtail abortion, saying the government should not be “telling women what to do with their bodies.”
Harris also addressed one of her main weaknesses – the fact that some voters still see her as a continuation of Biden, who dropped out of the White House race in July.
“My presidency will be different, because the challenges we face are different.”
She also sought to lay out a pragmatic and forward-looking plan for the country, including reminding voters about her economic proposals and pledging to work for access to reproductive care, including abortion.
“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.”
Also central to her message was positioning herself as a “new generation” of leader after Trump and even her current boss, Biden.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she 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.
Some Harris supporters queued for more than seven hours before the speech, whose sheer scale and energy was a direct challenge to Trump, a politician who has always boasted about his ability to draw crowds.
Harris and Trump remain in a dead heat in the polls, with both desperately trying to convince undecided voters in seven key swing states.
Trump has spent the last two days trying to tamp down a firestorm over his weekend rally in New York’s famed Madison Square Garden, at which warm-up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe jibed that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.”
Biden has come under fire for responding to the comments by appearing to call Trump’s supporters “garbage,” although he later said he was referring to the Republican’s rhetoric.
BREAKING: President Biden calls all Trump supporters (roughly 74M people) "garbage" in newly released footage.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 30, 2024
The development comes after days of the media telling Americans that this word is "x-rated, hateful, and abhorrent."
"The only garbage I see floating out there is his… pic.twitter.com/PiJI4cfzkB
During a virtual call aimed at urging Latinos to vote for Harris, Biden said: “Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico ‘a floating island of garbage.’
“Well, let me tell you something. I don’t know the Puerto Rican that I know… or Puerto Rico where I’m – in my home state of Delaware – they’re good, decent, honorable people.
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His, his demonisation of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American.”
In a subsequent tweet, Biden said he was referring to Hinchcliffe’s initial remarks about Puerto Rico.
“Earlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage—which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable,” he wrote.
“That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation.”
Trump called the comments “terrible,” and his running mate J.D. Vance said they were “disgusting.”
In a TV appearance, Trump said the comedian who made the comments about Puerto Rico “probably… shouldn’t have been there.”
Earlier, addressing supporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, however, Trump called the New York event a “love fest,” the same phrase he has used to describe the Capitol riot.
He also accused Harris of closing with a message that does not 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”, a reference to the vice president amplifying the warnings from his former chief of staff that Trump spoke admiringly of the Nazi leader while in office.
The Republican later rallied in blue-collar Allentown, in Pennsylvania, perhaps the most crucial of the seven battleground states that are expected to decide the election – and a city that is home to a large Puerto Rican community.
Fears of a repeat of the chaos from four years ago hang heavy over this year’s election, with Trump repeatedly indicating that he might again refuse to accept the result if he loses.
© AFP 2024, with reporting from Jane Moore
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