US Vice-President and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks to members of the press at a local hotel in Houston, Texas on October 25, 2024. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP)
US Vice-President and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks to members of the press at a local hotel in Houston, Texas on October 25, 2024. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP)
Kamala Harris will blast Donald Trump as unstable and obsessed with revenge as she gives her closing election arguments on Tuesday at the spot where her rival rallied supporters before the deadly 2021 US Capitol attack.
The Democrat’s speech outside the White House comes as Republican Trump brushedoff a racism-tainted New York rally as a “love fest” and insisted that it was Harris who was spreading hate and division.
Vice-President Harris, 60, and former president Trump, 78, are in a dead heat with exactly one week to go until Election Day, in the closest and most volatile race for the US presidency in modern times.
More than 50 million people have already cast their ballots early or by mail, figures showed on Tuesday – already nearly a third of the total number of voters four years ago.
Harris was to pledge to be a “president for all Americans”, contrasting herself with Trump, whom she accused of wanting to jail his enemies and to use the US military against political opponents.
“This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power,” Harris was to tell supporters in Washington, according to excerpts released by her campaign.
“But America, I am here tonight to say: that’s not who we are.”
Police said more than 50,000 people were expected to attend her rally on the Ellipse, the park where Trump delivered a fiery speech in which he ramped up his false claims that he won the 2020 election.
Trump supporters then marched on the Capitol to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory, in an assault that left 140 police officers wounded and brought the country to the brink of chaos.
‘Freedom’
Some Harris supporters queued for more than seven hours before her speech on a stage flanked by huge blue signs saying “Freedom”.
Student Ethan Glucroft, 21, said the choice of venue was “definitely in the shadow of the insurrection on January 6”.
“Tonight, this is about hopes, freedom,” Glucroft told AFP.
Trump tried to take the sting out of Harris’ speech with a campaign event of his own, in front of a room of supporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
His remarks came as he was seeking to tamp down the firestorm over his weekend rally in New York’s famed Madison Square Garden, at which a warm-up comedian called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”.
Supporters of US Vice-President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris wait on The Ellipse for her speech in Washington, DC. Photo / AFP
His campaign has tried to distance him from the remarks, with Trump already on the defensive over accusations by his former White House chief of staff that he would rule as a “fascist” dictator.
Trump said the New York event was a “love fest”, the same phrase he used to describe the Capitol riot, and lashed out at Harris.
“Her message has been a message of hate and division,” said Trump.
J-Lo on the trail
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.
On Tuesday, Trump seized on reports of Pennsylvania authorities halting hundreds of potentially fraudulent voter registration forms.
“Really bad ‘stuff.’ WHAT IS GOING ON IN PENNSYLVANIA???” he said on the social network X, formerly Twitter.
Trump has survived two assassination attempts, while Harris replaced President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket following his shock exit from the White House race in July.
The last days of the campaign will see both candidates on a gruelling final swing through the battlegrounds.
Actor and singer Jennifer Lopez was to join Harris in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Thursday, her campaign announced, in a bid to reach out to young and Latino voters.
