Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to reporters in Houston, on Oct. 25.Susan Walsh/The Associated Press
In the last mad dash before the U.S.’s neck-and-neck presidential election, Democrat Kamala Harris is focusing on two messages: that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and the architect of the country’s abortion bans.
On the first, she had some inadvertent help in the campaign’s second-to-last full week. John Kelly, Mr. Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, used a newspaper interview to describe his former boss as a would-be dictator who expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and “falls into the general definition of fascist.”
On the second, she got a boost from Beyoncé, who appeared with her at a Friday night rally in Houston on reproductive rights, with women who have suffered life-threatening medical complications because of the state’s absolute prohibition on abortion.
Next week, Ms. Harris’s campaign announced, the Democratic nominee will speak at the Ellipse in Washington, the site of Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech before his supporters stormed the Capitol.
The former president and Republican nominee, meanwhile, is dividing his time between trying to draw in low-propensity voters – people who are eligible to vote but often don’t – and ramping up the anti-immigration and conspiratorial rhetoric that drives his most devoted supporters.
On the first, Mr. Trump spent Friday afternoon taping an interview for Joe Rogan’s hugely popular podcast, especially with young men, and is planning a Sunday rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden. On the second, he referred to migrants as “garbage” and threatened to prosecute election officials for unspecified “cheating” at the ballot box.
Fact check: Trump repeated false election claims in podcast with Joe Rogan
Both presidential candidates are struggling to pull away in the close race. Polling Friday by both The New York Times and CNN showed them tied in support among likely voters nationwide. Surveys of the seven swing states that will probably decide the Nov. 5 race place them within the margin of error.
Ms. Harris’s response now is to turn away from previous efforts to belittle Mr. Trump – she described him as “unserious” at the Democratic National Convention in August – and toward dire warnings about what she says would be the constitutional consequences of returning him to the White House.
“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable,” she told reporters in Washington this week. “He wants unchecked power.” In a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania, asked if she thinks Mr. Trump is a fascist, she answered: “Yes, I do.”
This rhetoric picked up after the stark assessment from Mr. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who, during Mr. Trump’s presidency, was his chief of staff for a year-and-a-half.
“Certainly, the former president is in the far-right arena, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators – he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Mr. Kelly told The Times. “He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”
“He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,’” Mr. Kelly said.
The Atlantic magazine reported this week that Mr. Trump once lamented that U.S. generals were not obedient enough of him. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders,” the magazine quoted Mr. Trump as saying, citing two unnamed sources who were in the room.
On Friday in Austin, Tex., Mr. Trump denied Mr. Kelly’s account at a news conference. “It was phoney stories by a general that got fired. And he’s a whack job, total whack job,” Mr. Trump said. Nick Ayers, a former chief of staff to Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s vice-president, told Fox News that Mr. Kelly’s version of events “did not happen” and was “manufactured.”
Mr. Trump has described Ms. Harris as a “Marxist, communist, fascist” in his speeches.
The former president stepped up his own rhetoric in different ways this week. At a Thursday rally, lamenting migrant crossings of the border with Mexico, Mr. Trump said: “We’re like a garbage can for the world. First time I’ve ever said ‘garbage can.’ But you know what? It’s a very accurate description.”
On Friday on X, he said that, if he becomes president again, he will ensure that “Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials” who “CHEATED” in the election will be sent to prison. He did not provide evidence that any cheating is taking place.
The three-hour-long appearance on Mr. Rogan’s show, released Friday evening, seemed designed to reach people who do not pay close attention to cable news or other political forums. Much of Mr. Rogan’s show is apolitical, and so are many members of his young, male-dominated audience. While the podcaster has attracted right-wing listeners by spreading anti-vaccine misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, he has also described the former president as “an existential threat to democracy itself.”
Mr. Trump also won at least a symbolic media victory when two of the country’s largest newspapers cancelled planned endorsements of Ms. Harris, reportedly at the behest of their billionaire owners. Both the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times had been set to back her before Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, respectively, pulled the plug.
Ms. Harris, for her part, took aim at Mr. Trump on what may be his greatest policy-related vulnerability at her Houston rally. The former president appointed the three justices who gave conservatives a majority on the Supreme Court and overturned Roe v. Wade.
With polls showing that a majority of voters support abortion rights, Ms. Harris aimed to drive home the effect of the bans in states such as Texas. The Lone Star State not only prohibits the procedure from the moment of conception but mandates prison terms of 99 years for anyone who performs an abortion.
In addition to preventing abortions, women have died or suffered life-threatening injuries because doctors did not treat their pregnancy complications for fear of being prosecuted for terminating a pregnancy.
“Real harm has occurred in our country,” Ms. Harris told reporters ahead of the rally. “Real suffering has occurred.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include more specific language about COVID-19 misinformation in past episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast.