Harris rallies Arizona voters amid protests, promises economic reform and abortion rights
(The Center Square) – With early voting in Arizona ending on Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris gave her closing remarks Thursday afternoon in Phoenix. Amid motivational words about uniting the country, protesters shouting out about justice for Gaza were ushered out.
Harris stopped in the middle of her sentence to address the protesters, saying, “let’s talk for a moment about Gaza. We all want this war to end and get the hostages out and I will work on it full time when I am elected president as I have been.”
Harris spent the rest of her time promising to bring down the cost of living and protect a woman’s right to abortion.
“If he is elected, Donald Trump will walk in with an enemies list,” she said. “When I am elected, I will walk in with a to do list. On top of my list is bringing down your cost of living.”
The sitting vice president promised a “middle class tax cut” to over 100 million Americans and to enact the first ever federal ban on corporate price gouging on groceries.
The messaging on groceries has become a staple of her speeches, likely due to public opinion polling showing Americans don’t think inflation is easing under a Biden/Harris administration due to stubbornly high prices at the cash register. A recent Rasmussen poll found 4-in-5 respondents saying high grocery costs have changed how they eat.
Harris noted that 1-in-3 women live in a state with some type of restrictive abortion ban, quoting a line from former President Donald Trump’s speech at a rally on Wednesday where he said that he will protect women “whether the women like it or not.”
“He does not believe women should have the agency or authority to make decisions about their own bodies,” Harris said. “He simply does not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to make their own decisions.”
Trump’s comment from his speech in Green Bay, Wisc. on Wednesday was in the context of protecting women from violent migrants coming over the southern border and foreign adversaries, not abortion.
“I’m gonna protect them from migrants coming in. I’m gonna protect them from foreign countries that wanna hit us with missiles and lots of other things,” Trump said immediately following his comment Harris referenced.
Harris encouraged Arizonans to vote yes on Prop. 139 which would put a right to abortion access up until fetal viability and after with a doctor-determined threat to the physical and mental health of the woman in the Arizona Constitution.
She also commented on the phrase Trump has used during multiple rallies: “the enemy within,” referring to individuals in the U.S. that he does not agree with.
“I pledge to you to listen to experts, to listen to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make and to listen to those who disagree with me,” Harris said. “He wants to put them in jail, I will give them a seat at the table because that’s how democracy works and that’s how real leaders work.”
Trump is also campaigning in Arizona on Halloween, participating in a live interview with Tucker Carlson in Glendale in the evening.
