Kamala Harris on Tuesday night warned Americans that Donald Trump would open up a floodgate of vengeance against his political rivals, including ordinary Americans, while promising that she’d work for the American people.
“In less than 90 days, either Donald Trump or I will be in the Oval Office,” Harris said from the Ellipse in Washington, DC, pivoting to the visage of the White House behind her as she delivered what he campaign had billed as a “closing argument” speech.
“On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list full of priorities on what I will get done for the American people.”
Standing where Trump told his supporters on January 6, 2021, to “fight like hell,” shortly before they ransacked the US Capitol, Harris described the election as an existential choice between the liberties she promised to protect and the “chaos and division” that she said would follow Trump back into the White House.
“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,” Harris said. “This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power.”
Speaking for about a half-hour from the Ellipse, Harris measured her policy plans against Trump’s, casting herself as the former president’s foil – a president who would expand Medicare to cover home health care, where Trump would try to cut the program; a president who would back women’s reproductive rights, where Trump would further restrict them; a president who would prize compromise, where Trump feasts on conflict.
“Our democracy doesn’t require us to agree on everything. That’s not the American way,” Vice President Kamala Harris said. “We value a good debate, and the fact that someone disagrees with us doesn’t make them ‘the enemy from within.’ They are family, neighbors, classmates, and coworkers.”
“It can be easy to forget a simple truth,” she added. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
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One hundred days after President Joe Biden announced he wouldn’t run for reelection, Harris in her remarks maintained some distance. Serving as Biden’s vice president, Harris said, has been an “honor,” yet it would not define her administration or her objectives.
“My presidency will be different because the challenges we face are different,” Harris said. “Our top priority as a nation four years ago was to end the pandemic and rescue the economy. Now our biggest challenge is to lower costs—costs that were rising even before the pandemic and are still too high.”
Shortly after concluding, Biden responded to controversial comments he’d made earlier in a get-out-the-vote call, which many saw as a reference to Trump supporters as “garbage.”
Harris tried to connect her personal story to her vision for leading the country—a reflection of the fact that many Americans still want to know more about the vice president, who’s running a campaign within an incredibly compressed timeframe, along with her plans.
While her speech didn’t include more policy specifics, she emphasized that her background—a child of immigrants who became a prosecutor—prepared her to deliver on her promises.
“For as long as I can remember, I have always had an instinct to protect,” Harris said. “There’s something about people being treated unfairly or overlooked that just gets to me. It’s what my mother instilled in me: a drive to hold accountable those who use their wealth or power to take advantage of other people.”
