Vice President Kamala Harris participates in a CNN Presidential Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, October 23, 2024. (Photo by Rebecca Wright/CNN)
With less than two weeks to go before the general election, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, said Wednesday during a town hall in Delaware County, Pennsylvania she believes her GOP opponent, former President Donald Trump, is a fascist who is “increasingly unstable and unfit to serve” another term as president.
People who served under Trump during his term, she said, have said he has “contempt” for the Constitution.
“And then today, we learned that John Kelly, a four-star Marine general who is his longest serving Chief of Staff, gave an interview recently in the last two weeks of this election, talking about how dangerous Donald Trump is,” Harris said. “Frankly, I think he’s putting out a 911 call to the American people to understand what could happen if Donald Trump were back in the White House.”
Harris answered questions from undecided voters for just over an hour in what was supposed to be a second debate with Trump on CNN, but he declined to appear. Trump was in Georgia on Wednesday, speaking at a Turning Point Action rally.
CNN host Anderson Cooper served as moderator for the conversations. The questions, he said, came from voters and were not provided or edited by CNN.
The audience included Democrats, Republicans and independents who were undecided and “persuadable,” Cooper said. According to the network, town hall participants were selected by a nonpartisan research organization and CNN producers “working with local and state business groups, civic organizations, religious groups and universities.”
The first question came from a Bryn Mawr College student who said she was an anti-Trump Republican. She asked how Harris planned to “bridge the political divide” among voters who feel left out of the polarized political landscape.
Harris said people are “exhausted” by the current political environment “that is suggesting that America should be pointing fingers at one another, that we are divided as a nation.” She said she would be a president for all Americans.
“I have never in my career as a prosecutor asked a victim or witness of a crime, are you a Democrat or a Republican? The only thing I’ve ever asked is, ‘Are you OK?’” Harris said. “And I do believe that is what the American people deserve in their president, and not someone who makes decisions based on who voted for them or what is in their personal interest.”
The vice president pointed to reports that Trump considered whether people in California had voted for him when deciding whether to send aid during wildfires in 2018.
“I believe the American people deserve better, and they deserve a president who is focused on solutions, not sitting in the Oval Office plotting their revenge and retribution,” Harris said.
Another audience member asked Harris what she would do about the high cost of groceries. Harris replied that hers would be a “new approach,” grounded in her experience as attorney general of California.
“We will have a national ban on price gouging, which is companies taking advantage of the desperation and need of the American consumer and jacking up prices without any consequence or accountability,” she said, adding that addressing the shortage of affordable housing was also key.
“Democrats and Republicans haven’t done enough to deal with the issue of housing, and we need a new approach that includes working with the private sector … to cut through the red tape, working with homebuilders, working with developers to create tax incentives so that we can create more housing supply and bring down the prices.”
Cooper asked Harris how she would go about codifying Roe v. Wade in the Constitution, which requires 60 votes in the Senate, where Democrats currently hold a 51-49 majority.
“I mean, we need to take a look at the filibuster,” Harris replied, echoing comments she made last month, about doing away with the filibuster to restore abortion rights. She noted Trump’s appointment of three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe in 2022 and said she believed many people who are anti-abortion “didn’t intend that this would happen,” and have been dismayed by the consequences of total abortion bans in more than a dozen states.
“On some issues, I think we’ve got to agree that partisanship should be put aside,” Harris said. “I know it is possible because when you look at the midterms in so-called red states and so-called blue states, when this issue of freedom was on the ballot, the American people voted for freedom.”
On the issue of immigration, Harris referred to the bipartisan bill that failed to pass the U.S. House of Representatives.
“Donald Trump got wind of the bill and told them, ‘don’t put it forward, kill the bill,’ because he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem,” Harris said. “We have to have a secure border, and we have to have a comprehensive pathway for citizenship, and that includes requiring people, hard working people, to earn citizenship and do it in a comprehensive, humane and orderly manner.”
Cooper pressed her on the issue, asking why the Biden administration has not managed the flow of migrants across the southern border via executive action. Harris said that ultimately the problem needs to be fixed through congressional action.
“I think we did the right thing, but the best thing that can happen for the American people is that we have bipartisan work happening, and I pledge to you that I will work across the aisle to fix this long standing problem,” she said.
Asked what she would do “to ensure not another Palestinian dies due to bombs being funded by US tax dollars,” Harris did not directly answer but said “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. It’s unconscionable.” She added that, with the recent death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, “We have an opportunity to end this war, bring the hostages home, bring relief to the Palestinian people, and work toward a two-state solution.”
The Trump campaign criticized Harris for her performance during the town hall, calling it “a clinic in lies, smears, and radical leftism cloaked in word salad. It was meant to rehabilitate her image with the friendliest possible host on the friendliest possible network — but instead, it was her biggest implosion to date.”
One audience member asked Harris to provide “more nuts and bolts” about her economic plan. She responded with some of the highlights of her plan, including tax deductions for small businesses and a $6,000 tax credit for parents.
“And part of the issue here is this, we cannot, and I will not, raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year, but we do need to take seriously the system that benefits the richest and does not help out working middle class Americans,” she said.
Harris was also asked how her administration would be different from that of President Joe Biden. Her administration “will not be a continuation of the Biden administration,” Harris said. “I bring to this role, my own ideas and my own experience. I represent a new generation of leadership on a number of issues, and believe that we have to actually take new approaches.”
The vice president spoke about the sandwich generation, those caring for children and elderly parents, and how she cared for her mother when she was dying of cancer.
Cooper pressed her on why she had not enacted the policies already, as vice president. “There was a lot that was done,” she said, “but there’s more to do, Anderson.”
Asked whether she would expand the Supreme Court to 12 justices, Harris did not directly answer yes or no, but said Americans “increasingly are losing confidence in the Supreme Court, and in large part because of the behavior of certain members of that court and because of certain rulings, including the Dobbs decision,” she said. “So I do believe that there should be some kind of reform of the court, and we can study what that actually looks like.”
Another audience member asked Harris to explain why some of her positions had shifted, noting that “in Delco, we pride ourselves on being authentic.” Harris said she would not ban natural gas fracking, adding that her experience as vice president has shown her “that we can invest in a clean energy economy and still not ban fracking and still work toward what we need to do to create more jobs and create U.S.- based jobs in a way that will be globally competitive.”
Some of the perception of her shifting policy positions “is a whole lot of misinformation, to be honest with you,” Harris said. She added that the president should not be afraid of good ideas and does not stand on pride “if a perspective needs to be informed by different points of view to build consensus and to have a common sense approach.”
Both campaigns have spent significant time and resources in Pennsylvania this election cycle, as its 19 electoral votes are key to either candidate winning the White House. Trump will be in State College on Saturday, and Harris will be in the Philadelphia area on Sunday.
This story was originally published by Pennsylvania Capital-Star. Like Maine Morning Star, Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and X.
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