Kamala Harris Draws Sharp Contrast With Donald Trump In Closing Argument Speech: “We Are Not A Vessel For The Schemes Of Wannabe Dictators”
Kamala Harris drew a sharp contrast with Donald Trump as she made her closing argument against the backdrop of the White House on Tuesday, telling a massive crowd at the Ellipse that the election is a choice between a hopeful future, and chaos and division.
“These United States of America, we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators,” Harris said. “The United States of America is the greatest idea of humanity ever devised, a nation big enough to encompass all our dreams, strong enough to withstand any fracture or fissure between us, and fearless enough to imagine a future of possibilities.”
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Toward the end of the just over 30-minute speech, it was a tale of conflicting lower thirds, reflective of the divisions in the nation in this tight election. “Harris Delivers Closing Argument Of 2024 Election,” said CNN, while Fox proclaimed “Kamala Closes With Fear & Fascism.” MSNBC said “Kamala Harris Makes Final Pitch To Voters.”
The speech itself repeated many of the themes and policy proposals Harris has made on the campaign trail, but the address was heavily promoted, commanding the attention of major cable news networks and finishing up just as Game 4 of the World Series was about to begin.
Harris acknowledged that “many of you are still getting to know who I am,” as she interspersed her speech with personal anecdotes of her mother while making the case that her presidency would be different from that of Joe Biden “because the challenges that we face will be different.”
She appeared to hear the warnings of pundits who said that she needed to focus more on herself and her policy proposals — not merely Trump — in the waning days of the election.
That said, the staging of the speech was heavy in symbolism, as she noted at the outset that the Ellipse was where Trump held a rally on January 6, 2021 before sending “an armed mob to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election.” As she talked about that day, police sirens could be heard in the background — something that is not unusual in the area near the White House.
The event was carried by Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, while the BBC covered a portion of it before doing a split screen that included Trump’s rally in Allentown, PA. The broadcast networks stayed with regular programming, save for their streaming channels. Harris’ campaign said that 75,000 people were gathered — with an overflow, outside the security perimeter, near the Washington Monument. Those figures have not been confirmed with law enforcement.
During her speech, Harris sought to reach out to Republicans, which may be critical in what is being called a “margin of error” race. She seized on Trump’s own rhetoric, including his use of the term “enemy from within” to talk of political rivals, while casting her presidency as one that would unite.
“The fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within,” Harris said. “They are fellow Americans, and as Americans we rise and fall together.”
She also echoed a theme throughout her campaign, that Trump was seeking a return to the Oval Office for his own interests, not the voters. She said that on day one, Trump would walk into the Oval Office “with an enemies list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list of priorities of what I can get done for the American people.”
“I pledge to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your life better. I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress,” Harris said. “… And to people who disagree with me — unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I will give them a seat at the table.”
Trump’s team has tried to characterize Harris’ rhetoric as divisive, claiming that she has been calling the former president’s own supporters Nazis. That appeared to be a reference to Harris’ citation of comments made by Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly, who last week told the New York Times that the former president met the definition of a fascist.
“Kamala Harris is lying, name-calling, and clinging to the past to avoid admitting the truth — the migrant crime crisis, sky-high inflation, and raging world wars are the result of her terrible policies,” Trump national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
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