By Zeke Miller | Associated Press
WASHINGTON — 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 fomented the Capitol insurrection 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.”
Delivering her capstone speech from the place where Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, spewed falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election that inspired a crowd to march to the Capitol and try unsuccessfully to halt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory, Harris reminded voters of Trump’s role nearly four years ago and his focus on his own self-interest.
“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 Joe 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.
“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.”
Her speech drew a massive crowd to Washington, with an overflow crowd spilling under the Washington Monument on the National Mall. More critically, her campaign hopes the setting will help catch the attention of battleground state voters who remain on the fence about whom to vote for — or whether to vote at all.
Ahead of Harris’ remarks, her campaign organized a speakers list of ordinary Americans, rather than the star power that has been featured at some of her recent events, or the parade of elected officials often in the program at Washington events. They included Amanda Zurawski, a woman who nearly died from sepsis after being denied care under Texas’ strict abortion ban, and Craig Sicknick, the brother of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
