Washington, Oct. 30, (dpa/GNA) – US presidential candidate Kamala Harris rallied supporters on Tuesday, urging them to reject the chaos and division she associates with Donald Trump as the US election campaign reaches its climax.
Speaking at a large rally in the heart of Washington, just south of the White House, the Democratic candidate painted former US president Trump as “unstable,” claiming he is “obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power.”
The current US vice president said Trump has spent the past decade dividing the US people and instilling fear among them.
“It is time to turn the page on the drama and conflict, the fear and division,” Harris said, calling for “a new generation of leadership in America.”
“I pledge to be a president for all Americans. To always put country above party and above self,” Harris told the crowd.
The Democratic candidate promised to seek compromise and common-sense solutions, vowing to listen to those who may not agree with her or who choose not to support her.
Harris delivered her message at a historic site, the location where, on January 6, 2021, a crowd incited by Trump, who held a rally to promote baseless claims of election fraud, violently entered the building, killing five people.
The events unravelled while the US Congress was in session to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
Trump lost the election to Biden, but he still does not admit defeat, continuing to assert that Democrats are attempting to “steal” the election through dishonest means in the current campaign.
Trump supporters seize on Biden’s’garbage’ comments
Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters are seizing on comments made by Biden, whom they say called them “garbage,” while the US president said he was referring to the demonization of Puerto Ricans.
In the conversation, a transcript of which the White House released, Biden referred to a comedian at a Trump rally who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”
Biden said: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been,” according to the transcript.
Trump’s camp quoted Biden as saying: “The only garbage I see floating around are his supporters,” though the official transcript shows the sentence extending further. Biden reportedly was referring not to the supporters but to the comedian’s – hence the apostrophe in “supporter’s” – demonization of Latinos as trash.
The comments sparked a flurry of pro and con comments on X. “You called us garbage. We will never forget,” wrote one.
Tech billionaire and Trump supporter Elon Musk wrote that Biden had referred to half of America as “trash.”
Another wrote: “Let’s not forget that Trump calls people who don’t support him ‘the enemy within.’ He also calls us Marxists and communists. He does this every day.”
The “floating island of garbage ‘joke'” has sparked a strong backlash in Puerto Rico, which could become an issue for Trump shortly before the election. There are about 500,000 Puerto Ricans residing in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, which may prove decisive in the election.
Trump immediately sought to draw a comparison to the faux pas of his former rival Hillary Clinton, who in her unsuccessful 2016 campaign described some of his supporters as “deplorables.”
GNA