Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver her campaign’s “closing argument” Tuesday from the same spot in Washington where former President Donald Trump helped incite a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
One week out from Election Day, Harris’ address from the grassy Ellipse near the White House is designed to encourage Americans to visualize their alternate futures if she or Trump takes over the Oval Office in less than three months.
Trump will deliver what his campaign is calling “remarks to the press” at 10 a.m. at his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida. It is unclear whether the Republican will take questions. He will head to Pennsylvania later in the day for a Building America’s Future event in Drexel and a rally Tuesday night in Allentown.
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Here’s the latest:
Vice President Kamala Harris, who spent years working as a prosecutor, has spent her campaign for president laying out the case to voters for why she should be elected, a top aide said Tuesday.
Cedric Richmond says over the past three months Harris has given her opening statement and laid out evidence and the facts for voters.
On Tuesday, she’ll deliver a speech meant to sum it all up.
“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,” he said. “And that’s how it should be.”
Richmond says the speech will be about the “clear choice voters are facing this election between Trump and his obsession with himself versus her new generation of leadership that is focused on the American people.”
Vice President Kamala Harris chose the area near the White House and Washington Monument to speak on Tuesday because “it’s a reminder of the gravity of the job,” her campaign chairwoman says.
Campaign leader Jen O’Malley Dillon says the location, where Donald Trump helped incite a violent mob on Jan. 6, 2021, is a visual reminder of how much a president can do for good — or for ill.
It’s a “stark visualization of probably the most infamous example of Donald Trump and how he’s used his power for bad,” she said.
But Harris won’t spend a lot of time rehashing the violence of that day or recounting Trump’s continued efforts to lie about the election and sow doubt over voting. O’Malley Dillon says Harris will focus on talking about what her generation of leadership “really means,” and how much she will work to shape the country and impact people’s lives for the better.
Vice President Kamala Harris is doing five interviews Tuesday, including one with a Spanish-language radio in Pennsylvania aimed at Latino voters, in particular Puerto Ricans.
The interviews come after a comic at Donald Trump’s rally on Sunday made racist and vile jokes that singled out Puerto Ricans among other groups. Trump did not denounce the racist jokes. But he claimed he didn’t know the comic who gave a live performance at the venue before the Republican nominee took the stage.
Harris is also doing interviews in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. That’s before she gives a speech in Washington later Tuesday where she’ll lay out her closing arguments.
Donald Trump said he doesn’t know the comic who made racist and vile jokes at his big Madison Square Garden rally. But he’s not denouncing the comments either.
“I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is,” Trump told ABC News in an interview Tuesday ahead of his remarks at Mar-a-Lago, according to the network.
The comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, had told a series of raunchy and crude jokes, including calling Puerto Rico an “island of floating garbage.”
The comments have drawn outrage from Puerto Rican leaders with just a week to go before the election.
In the interview, Trump also insisted he hadn’t heard Hinchcliffe’s comments, according to ABC. But, “When asked what he made of them, he did not take the opportunity to denounce them, repeating that he didn’t hear the comments.”
The former president has arrived at his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida. He is set to meet with reporters at 10 a.m. ET. It is unclear whether the Republican will take questions.
The Democratic presidential nominee commented during an interview with Charlamagne tha God, DJ Envy, and Loren LoRosa for “The Breakfast Club” that aired Tuesday morning.
Both newspapers announced last week that they will not make endorsements in the presidential contest between Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
Harris sought to tie the decisions to billionaires in “Donald Trump’s club.”
Both publications are owned by wealthy executives, Jeff Bezos at the Post and Patrick Soon-Shiong at the Times.
DEARBORN, Mich. — Bowls of labneh and platters of za’atar bread covered the tables in a Lebanese restaurant near Detroit, yet no one seemed to have much of an appetite.
On one side were Kamala Harris ’ top emissaries to the Arab American community. On the other were local leaders who were explaining — once again — why many in the community couldn’t vote for the vice president because of the war in Gaza.
“I love this country, but I’ll tell you, we have never been so disappointed in this country as we are now,” said Nabih H. Ayad, chairman of the Arab American Civil Rights League. “We wanted to give the Democratic Party the opportunity to do something, and they haven’t.”
“The one line we can’t cross,” Ayad said, “is genocide.”
▶ Read more on what Arab Americans are saying about the election
WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. — Rachel Weinberg calls herself a religious Jew first, then a proud American. She said she has only one choice for president: Donald Trump.
“I don’t like everything he says,” the 72-year-old retired preschool teacher from Michigan said after volunteer canvassers for the Republican Jewish Coalition knocked on her door Sunday. “But I vote for Israel. It is our life. I support Israel. Trump supports Israel with his mouth and his actions.”
Weinberg’s home in West Bloomfield, in vote-rich Oakland County, was among more than 20 that the Republican Jewish Coalition was visiting that morning. She has voted for Trump in previous elections as well.
The door-to-door outreach to Jewish voters with a history of backing Republicans is part of a new effort the group is undertaking this year in five presidential battleground states in hopes of boosting Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.
▶ Read more about Republicans’ outreach to Jewish voters
