Washington — Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night will deliver her closing argument against former President Donald Trump at the same site he encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” on Jan. 6, 2021, before they marched to the U.S. Capitol and tried unsuccessfully to halt the certification of President Biden’s victory.
Harris’ speech, in front of what’s expected to be a massive crowd at the Ellipse near the White House, is meant to draw a contrast between her vision for the country and Trump’s as she seeks to win over undecided voters a week before Election Day.
“Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That’s who he is,” she is expected to say, according to excerpts of her speech. “But America, I am here tonight to say: that’s not who we are.”
She is expected to call her Republican rival “unstable” and portray him as “obsessed with revenge,” “consumed with grievance” and “out for unchecked power.”
“America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos. More division. And policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote,” she will say.
She will also pledge to make Americans’ lives better through “common sense solutions” and “seek common ground.”
“I pledge to listen to experts, to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make and to people who disagree with me. Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at my table,” she will say.
Previewing the speech, Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said the Ellipse was chosen because “it’s a place that certainly we believe helps crystallize the choice in this election.”
“We know a lot of these undecided voters, they’re exhausted,” she said. “They’re certainly frustrated by the state of the partisanship and divided political system that really was defined under Donald Trump.”
On Monday, Harris told reporters that Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City a day earlier underscored her argument against him. Speakers at Trump’s event made offensive, crude and racist remarks about minorities and Harris.
“That’s why people who formerly supported Donald Trump, have voted for him, are supporting me, voting for me,” she said. “He fans the fuel of hate and division, and that’s why people are exhausted with him.”
While getting ice cream in Baltimore, Maryland, on Tuesday, Mr. Biden told reporters he would be watching Harris’ speech. Explaining why he would not be there in person, he said, “because it’s for her, it’s her night.”