Harris denounces 'fear and division' stirred by Trump

Vice-president Kamala Harris delivered her campaign’s closing argument lasty night from the same spot in Washington DC where former president Donald Trump helped to incite a mob that attacked the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021.

- ZEKE MILLER

One week out from election day, Ms Harris’s address from the grassy Ellipse near the White House was designed to encourage US voters to visualise their alternate futures if she or Mr Trump takes over the Oval Office in less than three months.

President Trump opened his remarks to reporters at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yesterday morning by saying tat Ms Harris is running on a “campaign of destruction” and “of absolute hate”, accusing her team of “perhaps even trying to destroy our country”. He headed to Pennsylvania later in the day for a Building America’s Future event in Drexel and a rally last night in Allentown.

Benjamin Eiz, a Washington resident, says Ms Harris’s speech was “powerful”. The Venezuelan immigrant who got his citizenship two years ago will be able to vote in his first election next week. He said the portion of her speech about immigration was what resonated with him the most. “She talked about how immigrants made America great.”

Ms Harris closed her speech with a final appeal to voters - she urged them to “start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told” by rejecting Mr Trump. Ms Harris used the finale to her closing argument speech to say voters are “not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators”.