Kamala Harris rips Trump as ‘predator,’ touts her record during massive, star-studded Atlanta rally
Vice President Kamala Harris spoke Tuesday night at a star-studded, packed rally in Atlanta in a show of swing-state enthusiasm rivaling former President Donald Trump’s trademark campaign events.
Harris’ presidential campaign said roughly 10,000 attendees turned out for the event, which kicked off with a performance by rapper Megan Thee Stallion.
Just a little more than a week into her presidential run, the current veep declared herself the “underdog” in the Nov. 5 election — while thrilling supporters by denouncing the Republican nominee as a “predator” in her address.
“Georgia, it is so good to be back, and I’m very clear: the path to the White House runs right through this state,” Harris said after walking on stage at the Georgia State Convocation Center to Beyonce’s “Freedom” — her new campaign anthem.
Harris, 59, opened with her crowd-pleasing attack on Trump, 78 — casting herself as a tough-on-crime prosecutor going up against a serial offender.
“As many of you know, before I was elected vice president, and before I was elected a United States senator, I was an elected attorney general and an elected district attorney – and before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor,” she said. “So in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own game.”
“So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type,” she added to raucous applause.
It was her second campaign rally as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee — after she spoke to 3,000 people last week in Milwaukee.
The large crowd blew away the generally small audiences of President Biden, who ended his campaign on July 21 and endorsed Harris after top Democrats revolted over concerns about the 81-year-old incumbent’s mental acuity.
Harris used her 20-minute speech Tuesday to address head-on and reframe her biggest liabilities — including her role in US-Mexico border policy as Biden’s point person on reducing illegal immigration and the Biden-Harris administration’s economic record.
Four Biden proposals to remake the Supreme Court and backed by Harris:
- The Supreme Court justices would be limited to 18 years on the bench.
- Presidents could only nominate one justice every two years.
- A new ethics code would require justices to disclose gifts, not engage in political activities and avoid conflicts of interest involving themselves or their spouses.
- A constitutional amendment would reverse the court’s ruling that presidents have immunity for their actions in office.
Harris went so far as to say she would “proudly” put her record against Trump’s “any day of the week including, for example, on the issue of immigration.”
“I was the attorney general of the border state. In that job, I walked underground tunnels between the United States and Mexico on that border with law enforcement officers. I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels and human traffickers that came into our country illegally. I prosecuted them in case after case, and I won,” she said.
“Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been talking a big game about securing our border, but he does not walk the walk,” she added.
She also claimed that “Donald Trump does not care about border security. He only cares about himself.”
“And when I am president, I will work to actually solve the problem [at the border,]” she vowed.
Harris made the assertion despite Republicans regularly slamming her actions as the Biden administration’s so-called “border czar” — as she presided over sequential record-breaking annual illegal crossings.
Polls show that immigration is a leading liability for Democrats alongside economic concerns.
Trump is campaigning on a pledge to launch the largest mass-deportation effort in US history. During his initial four-year term, he redirected billions of Pentagon funds to build a US-Mexico border barrier.
Here’s the latest on Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign:
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Harris addressed economic concerns, but largely kept to Biden’s well-worn focus on what she called “price gouging” and “hidden fees.” She also vowed to double down on plans to cap some rent increases and drug prices.
High inflation has caused consumer prices to spike by more than 20% since Biden and Harris took office in January 2021 — in turn prompting higher interest rates that have skyrocketed the cost of holding a credit card balance and buying a home.
Trump has proposed his own economic plans including more tax cuts, eliminating taxes on tips and pushing for more domestic fossil fuel production. He also wants to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.
Harris on Tuesday also focused on abortion rights — an issue where Democrats have an edge, according to polling — calling it a matter of “freedom.”
Harris, who would be America’s first female president, said she would ensure “the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do.”
“We love our country. And I believe it is the highest form of patriotism to fight for the ideals of our country,” she said.
“And so, we who believe in the sacred freedom to vote will finally pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” Harris went on — referring to the locally significant issue of recent legislation regulating election policy.
“We are the underdogs in this race,” Harris told the crowd — less than 100 days before the election, as swing-state and national polls show her gaining ground on Trump.
“The momentum in this race is shifting, and there are signs that Donald Trump is feeling it,” she said.
She proceeded to troll Trump for pulling out of a debate in September he had previously agreed to do when Biden remained the Democrats’ nominee.
“Here’s the funny thing about that: So he won’t debate, but he and his running mate sure seemed to have a lot to say about me,” she said. “And by the way – don’t you find some of their stuff to be just plain weird?”
In one of her best-received lines of the speech, she sent a message to Trump: “I do hope you’ll reconsider and meet me on the debate stage, because, as the saying goes, ‘if you’ve got something to say, say it to my face!'”
Harris is expected to announce her running mate in the coming days so Democratic delegates can nominate the pair in a virtual roll call ahead of an Aug. 7 Ohio ballot-access deadline.
Harris’ energetic and large crowd was a far cry from Biden’s campaign events, which often featured close-in cameras to make supporters look more numerous, including a joint rally featuring Biden and Harris in Philadelphia on May 29 that filled less than half of a school gym.
