Kamala Harris sharpens her campaign message in a prime-time speech in Washington

The news

Kamala Harris summarized her campaign pitch with the biggest meeting of the cycle — at the White House ellipse, with the office she wants to take over right behind her.

“My presidency will be different because the challenges we face are different,” the vice president said, answering a question that has haunted her for months — what she would change from the Biden years.

“Our top priority as a nation four years ago was ending the pandemic and saving the economy,” Harris said. “Now our biggest challenge is to reduce costs, costs that were already rising before the pandemic and are still too high.”

Harris used the speech to reiterate several key themes of the campaign: Trump’s unfitness for office, how to restore federal abortion protections, and the choice between a round of tax cuts for the wealthy and progressive health care and housing policies.

“Donald Trump will deliver tax cuts for his billionaire donors,” she said. “I will cut taxes for working people and the middle class.”

She repeatedly stressed the importance of bipartisanship and civility, vowing to “build consensus and compromise” with Republicans on key issues, while warning that Trump would further inflame divisions.

“Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe that people who disagree with me are the enemy,” she said. “He wants to put them in jail. I give them a place at the table.”

She sought to combat Trump’s strongest advantage, immigration, by approving border controls without recanting Biden’s record.

“When I am president, we will quickly remove those who arrive here unlawfully, prosecute the cartels, and give the Border Patrol the support they desperately need,” Harris said.

The vice president had been delivering versions of the speech for a week in swing states but had only strung them together on Tuesday. She did not attempt to address her party’s divisions over Gaza, although a group of protesters gathered near an entrance and reminded Harris fans of one of their enduring issues.

Harris opened and closed her remarks by portraying Trump as a unique threat, one that independents and Republicans could temporarily dismiss.

“The United States of America is not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators,” she said. “The United States of America is the greatest idea ever conceived by humanity. A nation big enough to encompass all our dreams. Strong enough to withstand any rift or rift between us. And fearless enough to imagine a future full of possibilities.”

The position of the Republicans

Republicans worked quickly Tuesday to combine Harris’ call for bipartisanship and unity with President Biden’s stuttering performance during a Voto Latino call in which he condemned comedian Tony Hinchcliffe for disparaging Puerto Ricans during Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden. Biden said the “only trash” he saw in America was “from his supporter – from him, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable.”

At least, that was the interpretation of the White House, which included the apostrophe in “supporter’s” in a transcript and emphasized that the president was only referring to the roast strip. JD Vance and the Trump campaign said Biden was referring to all Trump “supporters” in hopes of ending the controversy over Trump’s Sunday rally, while accusing Democrats of insulting half the country. You can watch the clip here.

The debate, which was essentially about whether Biden was wandering or evil, was a vivid example of why Democrats pushed him off the ticket. The president intervened clarify his words on social media, writing that he was referring to “hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed like garbage by Trump supporter at his rally at Madison Square Garden” and “that’s all I meant to say.”