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    • Kamala Harris urges voters to switch from Trump in DC speech
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    Kamala Harris urges voters to switch from Trump in DC speech

    Online Niel Posted on

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    WASHINGTON – With the White House lit up behind her, the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris made a plea to undecided voters Tuesday night to “turn the page.” Donald Trumpas he sought to rewrite the Ellipsis legacy from the Jan. 6 Republican speech that preceded it an insurrection at the US Capitol.

    Harris’ speech at times touched on the upbeat approach he said he would bring to the presidency. Taking aim at Trump, the Democratic presidential candidate also criticized his Republican opponent for cultivating unrest when he was in the White House.

    “America for too long, we have been consumed by too much division, chaos and mutual distrust. Then it can be easy to forget a simple truth: It doesn’t have to be this way,” Harris said. “We need to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms. It’s time to turn the page on drama and conflict, fear and division.”

    She told a crowd, which her campaign estimated at 75,000, “It’s time for a new generation of leadership in America. And I’m ready to provide that leadership.”

    With a week left until Election day on November 5Harris and Trump traded insults as they criss-crossed the country trying to drum up support in a race which is statistically related. The two politicians made last-minute efforts to woo disaffected voters, holding big, attention-grabbing events such as controversial Trump rally there was a Sunday night rally at Madison Square Garden and Harris’ Tuesday night speech at the Ellipse.

    Throughout the campaign, Trump blamed Harris for inflation and high prices across the country. He also hit out at the current Democratic vice president over the Biden administration’s immigration policies, saying she is to blame for the increase in migrants coming to the United States.

    In a prepared statement on Tuesday, the Trump campaign criticized Harris’ speech for its “dark, angry and negative message that was marked by her sheer desperation.”

    “While Kamala promotes division, President Trump is focusing on the issues that matter to voters — fixing the economy, securing the border, protecting American freedoms and restoring America’s power around the world,” the Trump campaign said.

    Harris’ remarks were aimed primarily at Americans watching at home who may not be planning to vote in the election. She also acknowledged in her speech that many of the rally participants probably have they have already voted.

    For those who didn’t, she said: “We know who Donald Trump is, he’s the person who stood in this very place almost four years ago and sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol to he overturned the will of the people in free and fair elections, which he knew he had lost.”

    She said she would offers a different path than Trump or President Joe Biden if elected on November 5.

    “My presidency will be different because the challenges we face are different,” she said, adding that four years ago, she and Biden focused on ending the pandemic and shrinking the economy. “Now our biggest challenge is to reduce costs, costs that were rising even before the pandemic and are still too high.”

    The vice president was repeatedly asked how he would be different from the current administration, but he was reluctant to make a contrast between her and Biden.

    Committing to working with all Americans, Harris laid out his cost-cutting proposals for Americans, including banning federal price-gouging, capping insulin prices and supporting first-time home buyers.

    With a week until Election Day, Harris admitted she’s still introducing herself to voters who may not know who she is.

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    While Harris in her speech promised to take the United States in a new direction if elected, Biden’s remarks earlier Tuesday were pulled the spotlight away from his vice president.

    Addressing to racist comments comedian at Trump rally on Sunday said Puerto Rico is a ‘floating island of trash’, Biden said during a virtual event with Voto Latino: “The only garbage I see floating around there is from his supporter — his — his demonization of Latinos is unacceptable and un-American,” according to a transcript released by the White House.

    Biden’s remarks drew immediate backlash from Republican lawmakers and Trump, who held a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday night at the same time as Harris’ event. Trump said Biden’s remarks were “appalling” and compared them to comments by Hillary Clinton, who called some of his supporters “deplorable” during the 2016 presidential campaign she won.

    Biden later wrote in a post on X that he was referring to “the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico that the Trump supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally trashed.”

    “Recovering” the January 6 ellipse

    Before her speech, thousands of Harris supporters waited in a line that wound up and down Washington DC’s 15th Street from the National Mall to Pennsylvania Avenue.

    Vendors walked up and down the crowd selling T-shirts, buttons and other gear to support the Democratic candidate. Music filled the air as a hum of voices waited to be dropped onto the Elipse. Many attendees wore clothes in support of Harris’ candidacy, while others wore shirts that read “Vote” and “Black Lives Matter.” Some attendees were decked out in Harris’ signature shoe: Converse.

    At the event, a DJ played songs like Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” and Jennifer Lopez’s “Let’s Get Loud” — both artists supporting the vice president. The DJ also played a Trump campaign classic, Village People’s YMCA

    Volunteers handed out a variety of snacks including cotton candy, pop tarts and fruit snacks. At the end of the night, volunteers provided a surplus of cotton candy.

    Daraja Carroll, 28, lives a few blocks away from the White House and rode her scooter to the event with her friend Sharlie Goodson, 29. Like Harris, Carroll hails from California — the same place where Harris first served as a district attorney, San Francisco. And like Harris, Carroll dreams of becoming attorney general one day.

    “I just couldn’t sit on the couch,” she said. “I’m a black lawyer. I am a descendant of enslaved people. I am a history buff who knows my family’s history… There are so many reasons why I came today to support her. I felt like I couldn’t stay at home.”

    Four years ago, Carroll joined a block party at St. John’s Lafayette Square – the same location Trump vacated during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 after Biden defeated Trump. Carroll said at the time, they were claiming that space.

    Now, Harris is claiming the Ellipse, she said.

    “Because no matter how much you disrespect black history in the city, we’re reclaiming it here,” she said. “To be in DC, the way slaves built this, and for her to be on this stage in front of these buildings that were built by my ancestors and disrespected by these racist white people, it’s special. We have to reclaim it.”

    Tosha Taylor of Hughesville, Maryland, said Harris’ rally was a “stark contrast” to the Trump rally Americans saw four years ago. Taylor, an Air Force and Army veteran, said Harris’ event was one “full of solidarity and love of country and real patriotism.”

    But Trump’s Jan. 6 rally was “hateful,” Taylor said.

    “This is totally different,” the 53-year-old said. “Put the two pictures side by side. See solidarity, happiness and joy and pro-country. The other is anti-country, trying to overthrow your government. It was full of hate and violence and all kinds of crazy stuff and would-be patriots.”

    Suzy Wagner and her husband, Eric, said they think Harris nailed why voters should support her.

    “Everything that stood out was the antithesis of what he said and the fear that he put out there,” said Suzy Wagner, 54, of Arlington, Virginia. “I just got over it.”

    (This story has been updated with a new photo.)

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