Harris, Trump trade blows on women's and immigrant rights

Photo: Matt York Associated Press Kamala Harris était à Phoenix, dans l’Arizona, le jeudi 31 octobre 2024.

Danny Kemp – Agence France-Presse, Nicolas Revise – Agence France-Presse, Michael Mathes – Agence France-Presse respectively in Phoenix and Washington

Published at 1:03 p.m. Updated at 9:12 p.m.

• United States

Kamala Harris responded strongly to Donald Trump on Thursday on the rights of women and immigrants, two crucial themes of a very tense American presidential campaign, where the Republican candidate and his Democratic rival are trading blows.

With five days to go before an election with an unpredictable outcome and potentially violent aftermath, the rivals are engaged in a tight race across the seven key states. They are in two of them on Thursday, Nevada and Arizona (southwest), in particular to attract an increasingly large Latin American electorate.

Kamala Harris, 60, continues to want to mobilize women by promising to restore the federal right to abortion, facing Donald Trump, 78, who is accustomed to sexist statements and sentenced in civil court in 2023 in New York to tens of millions of dollars in fines for sexual assault.

During a rally in Phoenix, she accused him of “simply not respecting the freedom and intelligence of women to know what is best for them and to make informed decisions.”

“We trust women,” Harris proclaimed, and at the end of her speech acknowledged many of the supporters of diverse backgrounds gathered in the room.

Her team circulated on Thursday a clip from a Trump rally the day before in which he mocked his own advisers for asking him to stop portraying himself as a “protector” of women. “I'm going to do it whether women like it or not,” Mr. Trump replied.

His rival called the remarks “very insulting.”

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“Murderous madness”

Another central theme of the campaign: immigration.

Donald Trump, a populist tribune with increasingly authoritarian and far-right rhetoric, promised again at a rally in Albuquerque (New Mexico), not far from Mexico, to put an end to an “invasion” of millions of illegal immigrants and to expel them.

Stepping off his plane to cheers, wearing a black cap and a large coat, the leader made a direct link between immigration and crime by calling undocumented migrants “killers”, accused of “giving free rein to (their) madness murderous throughout America.”

“He insults Latinos, scapegoats immigrants. It's not just what he says, it's what he will do” if elected, Harris said.

Mr. Trump, whose speeches are increasingly long, rambling and vengeful, has attacked Democratic leaders: Joe Biden, “the sleepyhead,” Barack Obama, “the atrocious unifier,” and Kamala Harris, “as dumb as a rock,” whose “open border” policy with Mexico has apparently failed completely.

Photo: Roberto E. Rosales Associated Press Donald Trump, at a campaign rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Thursday, October 31, 2024

The billionaire continued to fuel the controversy of the week sparked Sunday in New York by a Trumpist comedian who described the American territory of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” President Biden responded awkwardly by calling Donald Trump supporters “scum,” before Kamala Harris tried to correct the situation.

The businessman is also scheduled to meet with radical right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson in Arizona and then hold a rally in Nevada.

Kamala Harris, for her part, continues to mobilize celebrities, such as actress and singer Jennifer Lopez, who is of Puerto Rican origin, on Thursday night in Las Vegas.

Cheating

In an increasingly tense campaign watched around the world, candidates have been accusing each other for weeks of fracturing the United States, a politically schizophrenic country according to polls that show them tied.

Some 63 million Americans have already voted by mail and early. In 2020, 155 million voted for the presidential election with a complex voting system and indirect universal suffrage.

As the election approaches, concern is growing about a possible violent protest if victory were to escape Donald Trump. Election centers in key contested state counties that were hotbeds of tension four years ago have been transformed into fortresses, protected by wrought-iron fences and metal detectors.

Mr. Trump, who has never conceded defeat in 2020, has already spoken of “cheating” in Pennsylvania.

In this crucial northeastern state, the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, Donald Trump's biggest supporter, is in trouble with the law because of the million-dollar lottery he launched to reward a conservative voter every day in a key state.