ERIE, Pa. \u2014 Vice President Kamala Harris portrayed Donald Trump as dangerous and \u201cunhinged\u201d at a rally Monday night, arguing that the Supreme Court\u2019s decision granting presidents broad immunity for their official acts have significantly raised the stakes for a second Trump presidency.<\/p>\n
Trying out a new tactic here in Western Pennsylvania, Harris ordered her aides to roll the tape on giant jumbotron screens inside the Erie rally hall to show clips of Trump making inflammatory statements and threats at his rallies and in a recent interview. Watching the former president speak, many in the crowd booed and some shouted \u201cHe\u2019s a criminal!\u201d Harris argued that Americans should be alarmed that Trump has threatened to jail his opponents and that he has described some fellow Americans as \u201cthe enemy from within.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the crowd chanted \u201cLock him up!\u201d Harris pumped her hands toward the floor to hush those jeers. \u201cThe courts will handle that,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s handle November, shall we? We\u2019ll handle November.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her speech marked one side of a day of dueling campaign events in Pennsylvania, a state both parties regard as a crucial battleground and potential tipping-point contest with just over three weeks of campaigning left. Trump was on the other side of the state holding a town hall where he went after Harris and delivered meandering remarks on a range of topics. The event was interrupted twice when members of the crowd appeared to need medical attention and ended with Trump standing onstage swaying to music for some 39 minutes.<\/p>\n
Here in Erie, one of the clips Harris showed was from a recent interview on Fox News where Trump referred to fellow Americans as \u201cthe enemy from within\u201d \u2014 and went on to state that the country has some \u201cvery bad people,\u201d \u201csome sick people\u201d and \u201cradical left lunatics.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can\u2019t let that happen,\u201d Trump said in the Fox interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe considers anyone who doesn\u2019t support him or who will not bend to his will the enemy, an enemy of our country. It\u2019s a serious issue,\u201d Harris said Monday night. \u201cHe is saying that he would use the military to go after them. \u2026 We know who he would target because he has attacked them before: journalists whose stories he doesn\u2019t like; election officials who refuse to cheat by filling extra votes and finding extra votes for him; judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris said those assertions were \u201camong the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America \u2014 and dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDonald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged. And he is out for unchecked power. That\u2019s what he\u2019s looking for,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, the Harris campaign also sought to draw attention to a September social media post where Trump said he intended to jail anyone who was involved \u201cin unscrupulous behavior\u201d related to the 2024 election, continuing his long practice of threatening election officials and trumpeting unsubstantiated claims of fraud.<\/p>\n
As Harris tried out those new lines in her speech, the campaign also released a new ad \u2014 \u201cEnemy Within\u201d \u2014 showing menacing footage of Trump yelling and making threats. The ad features two former Trump national security advisers who say Americans must consider the consequences of a second Trump presidency where his power is unchecked and he has no guardrails.<\/p>\n
The Harris campaign is attempting to give the public a more unfettered view of Trump in these final weeks, in part because advisers say they believe many Americans are not familiar with the controversial statements he is making at his rallies.<\/p>\n
In a new interview with New York magazine, Harris adviser David Plouffe \u2014 a former strategist for Barack Obama \u2014 argued that many Americans are not seeing the unfiltered Trump who appears at his rallies. Plouffe argued that Trump is \u201cnot a great asset at the close of the campaign, because he\u2019s unhinged, he\u2019s increasingly unstable, he\u2019s giving Soviet-style multi-hour speeches that make little sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats have spent nearly $50 million on television ads in Pennsylvania, while Republicans have spent nearly $52 million, according to the firm AdImpact, the most for either party in the seven battleground states. The Washington Post\u2019s polling average has Harris leading in Pennsylvania by two points.<\/p>\n
Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 but lost to President Joe Biden in 2020. Before the rally in Erie, Harris met with Black male voters at a Black-owned business in Erie where she touted what she has framed as her \u201cOpportunity Agenda for Black Men.\u201d<\/p>\n
During her visit to LegendErie Records and Coffee House, Harris held a conversation with Black men from the Erie area. The reporters who accompanied her were escorted out of the venue before the private conversation began.<\/p>\n
South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi L. Noem moderated Trump\u2019s town hall in Oaks, which is in the suburbs of Philadelphia. She criticized Harris at the outset and introduced attendees who asked Trump friendly questions that enabled him to lob attacks on Harris over immigration and national security, among other issues.<\/p>\n
The event took a turn when two attendees appeared to faint. Trump and Noem initially paused their remarks.<\/p>\n
After the second incident, Trump jokingly asking the crowd if \u201canybody else would like to faint.\u201d Then he tried a different approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s not do any more questions. Let\u2019s just listen to music. Let\u2019s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?\u201d he said. The event ended with Trump standing onstage swaying to music for an extended period of time.<\/p>\n
Throughout his remarks, Trump focused heavily on border security, as he has at other recent stops, and reprised language decrying a migrant \u201cinvasion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an invasion like we\u2019ve never seen before,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Trump has faced criticism from immigrant rights advocates for using dehumanizing language to describe undocumented immigrants, but many supporters have cheered his comments and polls show voters trust Republicans over Democrats on immigration matters.<\/p>\n
Trump offered meandering answers when asked about how he\u2019d address affordable housing and help small businesses.<\/p>\n
He also appeared to mix up the day of the election, telling attendees to \u201cvote on January 5th\u201d or before.<\/p>\n
LeVine reported from Oaks, Pa.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
ERIE, Pa. \u2014 Vice President Kamala Harris portrayed Donald Trump as dangerous and \u201cunhinged\u201d at a rally Monday night, arguing that the Supreme Court\u2019s decision granting presidents broad immunity for their official acts have significantly raised the stakes for a second Trump presidency. Trying out a new tactic here in Western Pennsylvania, Harris ordered her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}