Kamala Harris draws a sharp contrast to Trump in the closing argument

Kamala Harris drew a stark contrast to Donald Trump as she delivered her closing argument on Tuesday from the White House backdrop, telling a massive crowd at the Ellipse that the election is a choice between a hopeful future and chaos and division.

“This 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 conceived, a nation big enough to encompass all our dreams, strong enough to withstand any break or fissure between us, and fearless enough to imagine a future with possibilities.”

Towards the end of the just over 30-minute speech, it was a tale of conflicting lower thirds that reflected the divisions in the nation in this tight election. “Harris Delivers Closing Argument for 2024 Election,” CNN said, while Fox proclaimed “Kamala Closes on Fear and Fascism.” MSNBC said: “Kamala Harris makes final pitch to voters.”

The speech itself echoed many of the themes and policy proposals Harris has made on the campaign trail, but the address was heavily promoted, received attention from the major cable news networks, and ended just as Game 4 of the World Series was set to begin.

Harris acknowledged that “many of you still know who I am,” as she interspersed her speech with personal anecdotes about her mother while arguing that her presidency would be different from Joe Biden’s “because of the challenges we facing will be different.”

She appeared to heed the warnings of pundits who said she needed to focus more on herself and her policy proposals — not just Trump — in the waning days of the election.

That said, the staging of the speech was heavy on 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 overthrow 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 not unusual in the area near the White House.

The event was carried by Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, while the BBC covered part of it before doing a split screen that included Trump’s rally in Allentown, PA. The broadcast networks remained with regular programming, except for their streaming channels. Harris’ campaign said 75,000 people gathered — with an overflow outside the security area, near the Washington Monument. These figures have not been confirmed by law enforcement.

During his speech, Harris tried to reach out to Republicans who can 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 within” to refer to political rivals, while viewing her presidency as one that would unify.

“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 repeated 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 I’m elected, I’ll go in with a to-do list of priorities of what I can get done for the American people.”

“I promise to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your life better. I’m not looking to score political points. I’m looking to make progress,” Harris said. “… And to people who disagree with me — unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy. He’s going to put them in jail. I’m going to give them a seat at the table.”

Trump’s team has sought to characterize Harris’s rhetoric as divisive, claiming she has called the former president’s own supporters Nazis. That appeared to be a reference to Harris’ citation of comments from Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly, who last week told New York Times that the former president met the definition of a fascist.

“Kamala Harris lies, name-calls and clings to the past to avoid admitting the truth — the migrant crime crisis, skyrocketing inflation and raging world wars are the result of her terrible policies,” Trump’s national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.