Harris reaches for a big moment in the Ellipse speech at the White House about Trump

By ZEKE MILLER

WASHINGTON – Vice President Kamala Harris will promise Americans that she will work to improve their lives while being a Republican Donald Trump only does it for herself when she delivers her campaigns closing argument Tuesday from the same spot where the former president sat fueled the Capitol riot in 2021.

One week off from now on Election DayHarris’ MT speech at 5:30 p.m. from the grassy Ellipse near the White House is intended to encourage Americans to visualize their alternative future if she or Trump takes over the Oval Office in less than three months.

She hoped to sharpen that contrast by giving her capstone speech the place where Trump on January 6, 2021spewed falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election that inspired a mob to march on the Capitol and try unsuccessfully to halt the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory and the sealing of his own defeat.

With time running out and the race brutal, Harris and Trump have both been looking for big moments to try to shift the momentum one way or another. But after her speech in the nation’s capital, Harris will return to furiously seeking votes, holding one rally and one event after another in battleground states.

On Tuesday, aides said, Harris wants to look beyond the startling images of her location on the Ellipse and make a broader plea for voters to reject Trump and consider what she has to offer. Her campaign hoped to draw a huge crowd to Washington for the event.

“There’s a big difference between him and I,” Harris told reporters Monday during a preview of her speech. “If elected, he will be working on his enemies list on his first day in the Oval Office. If I am elected on day one, which I fully expect, I will work on my to-do list on behalf of the American people.”

Campaign aides emphasized that she will not release a treatise on democracy — a staple of President Biden’s own efforts to unlike Trump.

But her campaign hopes the setting will help capture the attention of battleground voters who still don’t know who to vote for — or vote at all.

It comes days after Harris traveled to Texas, a reliably Republican state appear with megastar Beyoncé and highlight the impact on women after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That, too, was a speech intended to resonate with voters far away in the battleground states.

The vice president’s final address has been in the works for weeks. But aides hoped her message would have more impact afterward Trump’s rally on Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York, where speakers hurled cruel and racist insults. Harris said the event “underscored the point I made throughout this campaign.”

“He is focused and basically fixated on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country,” she said.

Harris was expected to use her speech to lay out a pragmatic and forward-looking plan for the country, including reminding voters of her economic proposals and pledging to make an unwavering commitment to access to reproductive care, including abortion.

Also central to her message: positioning herself as a “new generation” leader after Trump and even her current boss, Biden.

As for Trump, she said Monday: “People are literally ready to turn the page. They are tired of it.”

Harris’ aides, many of whom also advised Biden’s campaign before he quit, still believe focusing the race on who Trump is and how she is different will be their strongest message to voters.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said it was important that battleground voters be reminded of the consequences of their choice this fall and that Harris “really highlighted the stakes of this election and the stark contrast in the race would make.”

He said Harris made the strongest argument on economic policy, reproductive freedom and the issue of chaos versus order, adding that she “has a vision that will bring more order, more hope and more joy.”

Trump would use scheduled remarks to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Tuesday morning to try to preemptively rebut Harris’ speech, a person familiar with the matter said.

Harris spent the day before the speech taping television interviews that aired in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and Spanish-language radio in Pennsylvania, her campaign said.

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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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Originally published: October 29, 2024 at 3:03 AM MDT