Vice President Kamala Harris makes her final case to voters Tuesday at the Ellipse in Washington D.C., and Florida Senate candidates work to get voters to the polls.
Harris makes ‘closing argument’ speech at the Ellipse in D.C., where Trump gave Jan. 6 speech
Vice President Kamala Harris made her “closing argument” to voters one week from Election Day at the Ellipse, the same site where then-President Donald Trump rallied his supporters ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
With the White House as her backdrop, Harris used the speech to paint a stark contrast between herself and the former president. Harris urged Americans to turn the page — one of the vice president’s oft-used refrains on the campaign trail — from Trump and embark on a new way forward.
"Tonight's going to be a major moment for the vice president as she frames her final pitch to voters across the country," said Harris campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond of the speech. "She'll approach this moment as she has her entire career as a prosecutor: She's given an open argument to the voters, spent the last three months laying out the evidence, the facts, and now she'll make her closing argument directly to the American people, or the jury. And that's who's going to decide the outcome of this election. And that's how it should be."
Harris and her surrogates have sought to put Trump’s rhetoric at the forefront of their closing message in the waning days of the campaign, including an event in Erie, Pa., this month where she played clips of Trump calling his critics the "enemy from within" and suggesting they "should be put in jail.” She took to the podium as recently as Wednesday to hammer Trump over comments from his own chief of staff John Kelly saying the former president “certainly falls into the general definition of a fascist.”
The use of “closing argument” is also a nod to her tenure as a prosecutor prior to her career in Washington — another attempt to draw contrast with Trump, who was found guilty of 34 felonies earlier this year in New York and faces two separate criminal prosecutions related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Advisers to Harris say that she will approach her speech not unlike the way she would a case in a court: she’s laid out evidence, and is bringing her final argument to the jury, better known as the American voter.
Trump spends hour at Mar-a-Lago ripping Harris
A week out from Election Day, former President Donald Trump on Tuesday unleashed a barrage of familiar attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris during an event at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.
The event was billed by the Trump campaign as a press conference, but the Republican nominee fielded no questions from reporters after he, along with a handful of guests, spoke to his supporters for nearly an hour.
Trump slammed Harris on immigration, inflation, the U.S. withdrawal from the Afghanistan war and other issues.
“We're going to talk about the real character of Kamala — a person who has no remorse for the anguish she's inflicted upon families all across America,” Trump said.
He accused the vice president of running a “campaign of hate,” said she is “aiding and abetting the cartels” and dismissed any economic accomplishments under President Joe Biden and Harris as a “fake economy.”
Trump did not address the crude and racist insults made by speakers at his rally Sunday in New York, including by a comedian who called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” Trump’s campaign disavowed the joke, and both Democrats and Republicans have condemned the attempt at humor.
The former president only spoke briefly about the rally. He pushed back on it being compared to a 1939 Nazi rally also held at Madison Square Garden.
“How terrible to say, right?” Trump said. “Because, you know, they've used Madison Square Garden many times. Many people have used it. But nobody's ever had a crowd like that.”
He called the rally a “love fest.”
The comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, also made derogatory remarks about Latinos, Blacks, Jews and Palestinians. And other speakers made incendiary comments. Trump's childhood friend David Rem referred to Harris as "the Antichrist" and "the devil." Businessman Grant Cardone told the crowd that Harris "and her pimp handlers will destroy our country."
“That was love in the room, and it was love for our country,” Trump said Tuesday.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s Tuesday event.
In attacking Harris on border security, the former president made a series of false and misleading claims. He repeated widely debunked claims about the government's response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. He also claimed to be leading Harris in early voting in all seven swing states despite votes not yet being counted.
Sen. Rick Scott campaigns in Ormond Beach
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott was on Florida’s East Coast Tuesday where he held a Get Out the Vote rally at Ormond Garage, a brewery in Ormond Beach.
The Republican candidate was joined by local officials and law enforcement. During his speech, he urged his supporters to vote.
“In all my races, we were behind on Election Day until we were going into Election Day. Right now, Republicans are out-voting Democrats almost two to one,” Scott said.
Scott took questions from reporters afterward where he reacted to remarks about Puerto Rico made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden over the weekend.
“It’s a beautiful place. It was a bad joke … the Trump campaign came out and said it was wrong with what happened. So, I just wish it hadn’t happened,” Scott said.
Scott’s Democratic challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell has been traveling to college campuses for her get out the vote efforts. When asked why young people should vote for him, Scott pointed to the economy and inflation.
“What the Democrats have done all across the country have caused inflation in whether it’s health care, whether it’s education, whether it’s housing costs, whether it’s groceries, and so they’re making it very difficult for a young person to get started,” he said.