Kamala Harris delivers ‘closing argument’ in Washington: ‘It is time for a new generation of leadership’ – live

Kamala Harris will call on voters to ‘turn the page’ in Washington DC speech

Lauren Gambino

With the presidential race deadlocked a week before election day, Kamala Harris will call on voters to “turn the page” on the Trump era, in remarks delivered from a park near the White House where the former president spoke before a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in a last effort to overturn his 2020 loss.

Harris, a former prosecutor, will deliver what her campaign has called her “closing argument” intended to persuade the vanishing slice of undecided voters, in a location she hopes will remind them precisely why Americans denied Trump a second term four years ago. The Democrat is expected to cast her opponent as a divisive figure who will spend his term consumed by vengeance, leveraging the power of the presidency against his political enemies rather than in service of the American people.

“We know that there are still a lot of voters out there that are still trying to decide who to support or whether to vote at all,” Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Harris’s campaign’s chair, told reporters on a call previewing the remarks on Tuesday morning. She said many Americans were “exhausted” by the tribalism and polarization Trump has exacerbated since his political rise in 2016.

Although the vice-president frames the stakes of the 2024 election as nothing less than the preservation of US democracy, her speech is expected to strike an optimistic and hopeful tone, standing in stark contrast to the dark, racist themes that animated Trump’s grievance-fueled rally at Madison Square Garden.

“That’s why people are exhausted with him,” Harris said before boarding Air Force Two, where she worked on the speech with advisers on the plane. “People are literally ready to turn the page.”

Updated at 22.47 GMT

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Pro-Palestinians protesters removed from venue

Several pro-Palestinians protesters are being removed from the speech. Harris is often interrupted by protests over her refusal to call for an arms embargo against Israel following its devastating invasions of Gaza and Lebanon.

Harris did not appear to hear the protesters and kept speaking without disruption.

One woman carrying the red, black and green Palestinian flag was removed. “Free Palestine,” she shouted and was drowned out by chants of USA! USA!

Harris repeats her policies about care giving at home. She will change medicare so that it will cover the costs of home-based medical care, she says.

She will work to make sure “hard-working Americans can afford a place to live”, she says. She remembers her own mother saving up to buy a home.

“It’s about the pride of your hard work,” she says.

There is an obvious contrast here with Trump, who inherited wealth from his property mogul father.

Updated at 23.54 GMT

So far this speech is specific and practical. Harris has sought to portray herself as someone down-to-earth and in touch, a protector who gets things done, who will walk into the Oval Office “with a to-do list”, and who will work to unite Americans.

Updated at 23.54 GMT

“Our top priority as a nation four years ago was to end the pandemic and rescue the economy. Now our priority is to bring down costs,” says Harris.

She says she remembers her mother sitting at a “formica table”, worrying about bills.

Trump, she says, is going to impose a Trump sales tax on everything that is important. It would cost the average family nearly $4,000 a year.

Families will pay even more if “Trump finally gets his way and repeals the affordable care act”.

“We are not going back,” she says. “We are not going back,” and the crowd goes wild.

Updated at 23.54 GMT

‘Trump will walk in with an enemy list. I will walk in with a to-do list,’ says Harris

“In less than 90 days, either Donald Trump or I will be in the Oval Office,” she says, and the crowd erupts into chants of “Kamala! Kamala!”.

“And on day one of being elected, Donald Trump will walk in with an enemy list. I will walk in with a to-do list,” she says.

Updated at 23.50 GMT

“I will always tell you the truth, even if it is difficult to hear,” says Harris.

Kamala Harris acknowledges that some voters may not “know who I am”, and she introduces herself as a prosecutor who has “always had an instinct to protect. There is something about people being treated unfairly or overlooked that frankly just gets to me. I don’t like it,” she says.

Updated at 23.48 GMT

‘It is time for a new generation of leadership,’ says Harris

“It is time for a new generation of leadership in America,” says Harris.

“And I am ready to offer that leadership as the next president of the United States of America.”

Harris, who just turned 60 years old, is 18 years younger than Donald Trump.

Share‘For too long we have been consumed by division,’ says Harris

Harris says that America’s motto, E pluribus unum, which is Latin for “Out of many, one”, signifies that debate, and disagreement, are important: the fact that a person disagrees with you does not make them your enemy.

“As Americans we rise and fall together,” she says.

“America, for too long, we have been consumed by division,” she says, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“We have to stop pointing fingers and start linking arms,” she says.

“That is who Donald Trump is,” Harris says, but she is here to remind America: “That is not who we are.”

Updated at 23.45 GMT

Harris is highlighting Trump describing those who disagree with him as “the enemy within”.

Trump is “unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power”, she says.

Updated at 23.45 GMT

Harris invokes January 6 storming of Capitol, ‘at this very place’

Harris says the vote will be between chaos and division, or freedom.

Harris says: “At this very place, [Trump] sent an armed mob to overturn a free and fair election, an election that he lost. Americans died as a result of that attack,” she says.

She reminds the crowd that Trump was told that the mob wanted to kill “his own vice-president”, Mike Pence, and responded with “two words: ‘So what?’”

Updated at 23.44 GMT

Harris says next week will be, ‘the most important vote you ever cast’

“So listen: one week from today you will have the chance to make a decision that directly impacts your life, the life of your family, and the future of this country that we love,” Harris says.

“And it will probably be the most important vote you ever cast.”

Updated at 23.40 GMT

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Kamala Harris delivers ‘closing argument’ in Washington: ‘It is time for a new generation of leadership’ – live | US elections 2024