WASHINGTON: Democrat Kamala Harris warned tens of thousands of people gathered in Washington at her biggest rally that her Republican opponent Donald Trump was seeking unchecked power as their tightening race for the presidency entered its final week.
\nHarris spoke on Tuesday evening to an outdoor rally estimated by her campaign to number more than 75,000 people at the spot near the White House where on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump addressed his supporters before they attacked the US Capitol.
\n\u201cWe know who Donald Trump is,\u201d Harris said. She said the then-president sent an \u201carmed mob\u201d to the US Capitol to try to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
\n\u201cThis is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power,\u201d Harris said during what her campaign called her closing argument before a tightly contested Nov. 5 election.
\nMore than 53 million Americans have already voted in the election, according to Election Hub at the University of Florida, in a battle that will decide who runs the world\u2019s richest and most powerful country for four years.
\nHarris was flanked by American flags on stage and surrounded by blue and white banners that said \u201cFREEDOM\u201d with a well-lit White House behind her.
\nThe crowd included older people and college students, people from overseas, from New York and from nearby Virginia. Many women came in groups with other female friends.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s important that we do not go back to the horrible past policies under President Trump,\u201d said Saul Schwartz, a former federal worker from Alexandria, Virginia.
\n\u201cShe is everything that I always wanted in a president. She is joyous. She is real, she is powerful. And she is a woman,\u201d said Danielle Hoffmann from Staten Island, New York. \u201cIt\u2019s time for you guys… to take a backseat because we\u2019re driving right now,\u201d she said, addressing men in general. Her husband, she noted, is a Trump supporter.
\nA Reuters\/Ipsos poll on Tuesday showed that Harris\u2019 lead had eroded to just 44 percent to 43 percent among registered voters.
\nHarris has led Trump in every Reuters\/Ipsos poll since she entered the race in July, but her advantage has steadily shrunk since late September.
\nTrump and his allies have sought to play down the violence of Jan. 6.
\nThousands of his supporters stormed the Capitol, sending lawmakers fleeing for their lives after Trump\u2019s address on the Ellipse, where as president in 2021 he told the crowd to \u201cfight like hell\u201d to prevent Congress from ratifying his loss.
\nFour people died in the ensuing riot at the Capitol, and one police officer who defended the Capitol died the following day. Trump has said that if reelected, he would pardon the more than 1,500 participants who have been charged with crimes.
\n\u201cWe have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms,\u201d Harris told the Washington crowd on Tuesday and urged Americans to put divisions behind them.
\nIn Florida earlier in the day, Trump sought to move on from the racist and other vulgar remarks made by allies at his New York rally on Sunday.
\nTrump did not comment on the remarks made by speakers at the Sunday event where comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a \u201cfloating island of garbage\u201d and disparaged Black Americans, Jewish people, Palestinians and Latinos.
\nTrump\u2019s campaign had said previously that the comments about Puerto Rico did not reflect the former president\u2019s views, but Trump on Tuesday called the New York event \u201can absolute lovefest\u201d and said he was honored to be involved.
\nPresident Joe Biden drew ire from Trump\u2019s campaign for remarks he made about the Sunday rally during a fundraising call on Tuesday.
\nAccording to a transcript posted by a White House spokesperson on X, Biden said: \u201cthe only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter\u2019s \u2014 his \u2014 his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it\u2019s un-American.\u201d
\nSeveral news organizations cited the same quote but without the apostrophe.
\nBiden later posted on X, the social media site: \u201cEarlier today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump\u2019s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage \u2014 which is the only word I can think of to describe it. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable. That\u2019s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don\u2019t reflect who we are as a nation.\u201d
\nAs Harris spoke in Washington, Trump visited a heavily Hispanic city in Pennsylvania, two days after Hinchcliffe\u2019s comments about Puerto Rico drew outrage at the New York rally.
\nThe US Census Bureau says Puerto Ricans are the largest Hispanic group in Pennsylvania, a state that holds the highest number of Electoral College votes of the seven battleground states expected to decide the election.
\n\u201cI\u2019d like to begin with a very, very simple question: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? I\u2019m here today with a message of hope for all Americans,\u201d Trump said.
\nHarris, who would be the first female president, and Trump, seeking a return to office after his 2017-21 term, diverge on support for Ukraine and NATO, abortion rights, taxes, basic democratic principles and tariffs that could trigger trade wars.
\nOn tariffs, Trump on Tuesday explicitly mentioned the European Union. \u201cThey\u2019re brutal,\u201d he said in Pennsylvania. \u201cThey sell millions and millions of cars in the United States. No, no, no, they are going to have to pay a big price.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: Democrat Kamala Harris warned tens of thousands of people gathered in Washington at her biggest rally that her Republican opponent Donald Trump was seeking unchecked power as their tightening race for the presidency entered its final week. Harris spoke on Tuesday evening to an outdoor rally estimated by her campaign to number more than …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72259,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72246\/revisions\/72259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}