WASHINGTON >> Kamala Harris promised Tuesday to “put country above party and above self” in the closing argument of her presidential campaign, delivering her message from the same site where Donald Trump fomented the Capitol insurrection, to emphasize the sharp choice voters face.
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.”
She looked to sharpen that contrast by 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.
“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.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, and encouraged 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 campaign drew a massive crowd to Washington for the event, with an overflow crowd spilling under the Washington Monument on the National Mall.
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, who died in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack.
The vice president’s latest address has been in the works for weeks. But aides hoped her message would land with more impact after Trump’s rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York, where speakers hurled cruel and racist insults. Harris said the event “highlighted the point that I’ve been making throughout this campaign.”
“He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country,” she said.
Harris 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: positioning herself as a “new generation” of leader after Trump and even her current boss, Biden.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Harris 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.”
She acknowledged that “many of you are still getting to know who I am” after her surprise elevation to the top of the Democratic ticket after Biden dropped out of the race in July, and used her remarks to try to answer voters’ curiosity.
“I recognize this has not been a typical campaign,” Harris said, adding that she is “not afraid of tough fights against bad actors and powerful interests.”
“I will work every day to build consensus and reach compromise to get things done,” she said.
Ahead of Harris’ speech, Trump used remarks to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Tuesday morning to accuse Harris of closing with a message that doesn’t 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 Harris amplifying the warnings from his former chief of staff that Trump spoke admiringly of the Nazi leader while in office.