WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris claimed without evidence Tuesday that former President Donald Trump “has an enemies list of people he intends to prosecute” as she made a heavily promoted closing appeal to voters with the White House as her backdrop.
Harris, 60, made the allegation as she urged listeners to reject Trump’s “chaos,” calling the Republican nominee a “petty tyrant” and “wannabe dictator” — as polls show an incredibly close race exactly one week from Election Day.
“Donald Trump has told us his priorities for a second term. He has an enemies list of people he intends to prosecute,” Harris claimed — despite no reporting on the existence of such a list.
“On day one if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list. When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list full of priorities of what I will get done for the American people,” she told the roaring crowd estimated by her campaign to be roughly 40,000-strong.
Trump, 78, suggested last week he may pardon retiring President Biden’s son Hunter and has noted in several recent public appearances that he opposed prosecuting Hillary Clinton during his term of office.
Trump has denounced what he calls the “weaponization” of the Justice Department in the Biden-Harris administration, which filed two unprecedented pending criminal cases against him.
“Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy. He wants to put them in jail. I’ll give them a seat at the table,” Harris said in her 29-minute speech, which Biden, 81, did not attend.
“He says that one of his highest priorities is to set free the violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers on January 6,” Harris went on — though Trump has not specifically said he would release rioters who attacked police, as opposed to non-violent members of the mob that stormed the Capitol in 2021 to block certification of Trump’s loss.
“Donald Trump intends to use the United States military against American citizens who simply disagree with him,” she added.
“People he calls, ‘the enemy from within.’”
Harris made a number of additional factually contested claims during her remarks, including saying that Trump “has shown his contempt for our nation’s heroes —calls them suckers and losers” — citing a disputed Atlantic magazine article from 2020 whose central premise about a canceled French cemetery visit was debunked by Navy records.
“Autocrats like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un are rooting for him in this election,” said Harris, whom Putin actually publicly endorsed, though the sincerity of that endorsement has been questioned.
“Politicians have got to stop treating immigration as an issue to scare up votes in an election,” Harris said at another point — in reference to Republican attacks on her tenure as Biden’s point person on reducing illegal immigration, which instead surged to three consecutive annual highs.
“It is time to turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division. It is time for a new generation of leadership in America,” she said.
Harris also spoke of policies that she said would reduce “financial pressure on middle class families” after high inflation and elevated interest rates under her and Biden’s administration.
“Donald Trump would deliver tax cuts to his billionaire donors. I will deliver tax cuts to working people and the middle class,” she said.
Harris has proposed an expanded child tax credit and endorsed Trump’s proposal to end federal income taxes on tips.
Harris has not endorsed Trump’s proposals to eliminate taxes on overtime pay and Social Security benefits, or his proposals to make car loan interest tax-deductible and IVF treatments free through either an insurance mandate or government subsidy.
She also vowed to “cut the red tape” to build new housing to lower costs — a proposal she and Trump agree upon — and slammed Trump’s plans for new tariffs on foreign goods as akin to a new national sales tax, which Trump has disputed, calling tariffs a negotiating tactic.
Harris spoke as Trump campaigned in swing-state Pennsylvania.
Biden watched his would-be successor’s speech from inside the White House.
The outgoing president, who was forced by fellow Democrats to relinquish the party’s nomination in July, told reporters earlier Tuesday that he wasn’t going to be there because “it’s for her.”
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