Kamala Harris had a stark warning for America as she rallied in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Monday night: If the “increasingly unstable and unhinged” Donald Trump becomes president again, he will exact revenge on his perceived enemies.
“We know who he would target, because he has attacked them before: journalists whose stories he doesn’t 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,” said Harris, who added that the Supreme Court’s sweeping ruling on presidential immunity would embolden him.
The vice president focused on Trump’s recent remarks calling his political opponents “the enemy from within” and suggesting the U.S. military should handle “radical left lunatics.”
ADVERTISEMENT
After playing a video compilation of Trump making those comments on Fox News and at rallies, Harris warned that he is “out for unchecked power.”
“This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America, and dangerous,” she continued. “Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged, and he is out for unchecked power. That’s what he’s looking for. He wants to send the military after American citizens.”
The Democrat’s team is also releasing a new ad highlighting the former president’s comments. The spot features his own words, accuses him of “echoing fascists,” and includes a clip from his former national security aide Olivia Troye, who recalls how Trump once suggested shooting people on the street.
Harris’ staff quickly sounded the alarm after Trump made the comments over the weekend.
The tone of her campaign has shifted since the summer, when she and her allies focused on painting the former president as “weird” rather than as a threat to democracy. Back then, they mocked his obsession with crowd sizes and portrayed him as a small and selfish man who was only looking out for himself and his rich friends.
The campaign is still invoking those themes. But it is ramping up more dire warnings about Trump, just as Hillary Clinton did in October 2016, as the election approaches. Recent polls have shown the candidates neck-and-neck, betting markets have Trump ahead, and some Democrats are concerned that her campaign is stuck.
Her Monday rally took place in one of the most important counties in the country. Erie County is a bellwether, having voted for the winner of the presidential race in the last four elections. Plus, it’s located in the biggest swing state in the country, Pennsylvania, where political billboards plaster every major highway and both campaigns are pulling out all the stops to win.
