RIPON, Wis. — Vice President Kamala Harris rallied with Republican Liz Cheney in the birthplace of the modern Republican Party on Thursday as the pair delivered a double-barreled denunciation of GOP nominee Donald Trump as a dire threat to democracy.
With some people hoisting signs “Country over Party,” Harris told the crowd that “people of every party must stand together” to reject Trump, citing his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and his failure to quell the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
It was an improbable moment — a Democratic nominee giving a nod to a rival party member and to the origins of the opposing party in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign — and it demonstrated how much Harris is attempting to win over moderate and crossover Republican voters.
Harris said of Trump, “He refused to accept the will of the people and to accept the results of an election that was free and fair.”
“The president of the United States must not look at our country through the narrow lens of ideology or party partisanship or self-interest,” she added. “Our nation is not some spoil to be won. The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised.”
Cheney is one of Trump’s most ardent antagonists. She is the daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney and was the top GOP lawmaker on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, earning Trump’s disdain and effectively exiling herself from her own party.
“Violence does not and must never determine who rules us. Voters do,” Cheney told the crowd as she recounted Trump refusing to act as he watched the violent attack on television. Someone in the crowd yelled, “Coward!” Others booed.
Adding to the surreal nature of the event, the crowd cheered references to Dick Cheney and to another Republican former vice president: Mike Pence, who refused to bow to pressure from Trump and attempt to stop the certification in Congress of Biden’s 2020 victory.
“He praised the rioters. He did not condemn them. That’s who Donald Trump is,” Liz Cheney said, while urging the crowd to “meet this moment. I ask you to stand in truth. To reject the depraved cruelty of Donald Trump.”
In an interview Thursday night with Fox News Channel, Trump said of Harris and Cheney: “I think they hurt each other. I think they’re so bad, both of them.”
Cheney lost her Wyoming seat to a Trump-endorsed candidate two years ago and endorsed Harris, the Democratic nominee, last month. The two women appeared together in Ripon, home to a white schoolhouse where a series of meetings held in 1854 to oppose slavery’s expansion led to the start of the Republican Party.
“I know that she loves our country, and I know she will be a president for all Americans,” Cheney said of Harris. Noting that she herself remains conservative, Cheney said she was “honored to join her in this urgent cause.”
“Thank you for your support and your leadership — and your courage,” Harris said onstage with Cheney afterward at Ripon College, a small liberal arts school.
Harris is on a two-day Wisconsin and Michigan swing, while Trump was in Michigan on Thursday as both candidates grapple for wins in the “blue wall” battleground states, which also include Pennsylvania.
While Cheney and Harris spoke, the former president took to his social media site to say Democrats and prosecutors have lied about the “huge crowd of Patriots gathered in Washington, D.C. on January 6th.”
That was a far cry from President Joe Biden’s reaction. Arriving back at the White House after touring damage from Hurricane Helene in Georgia and Florida, Biden said of Cheney: “She made one of the most consequential speeches I’ve ever heard. She has character.”
“I know her dad,” Biden added. “We argue like hell, but I always admired his courage and honesty. What she did took not only political courage, but physical courage.”
Harris’ visit to Wisconsin came a day after a federal judge unsealed a 165-page court filing outlining prosecutors’ case against Trump for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump has pleaded innocent to charges of conspiracy and obstruction.
Trump didn’t mention the document filed by special counsel Jack Smith or Cheney’s appearance with Harris during an 82-minute speech at a rally in Saginaw County, Michigan. In 2020, Biden won the bellwether county by a slim 303 votes, contributing to his victory in the state.
As Trump spoke, his campaign announced he’ll appear in Georgia on Friday with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. The two men have made peace after Trump in August unleashed a blistering attack on Kemp, whom he has faulted for not giving in to his efforts to overturn his loss in 2020.
During the 2020 campaign, Cheney criticized Harris as “a radical liberal” who “wants to recreate America in the image of what’s happening on the streets of Portland & Seattle,” a reference to unrest that took place in those cities after the murder of George Floyd.
But Jan. 6 was a turning point for Liz Cheney and her family. Both Cheneys are backing Harris, part of a cadre of current and former Republican officials who have broken with the vast majority of their party, which remains in Trump’s corner. Harris wants to portray her candidacy as a patriotic choice for independent and conservative voters who were disturbed by Trump’s unwillingness to cede power. Trump continues to deny his defeat with claims of voter fraud.
Judges in multiple states dismissed state and federal lawsuits filed by Trump’s legal team that claimed widespread voting improprieties in the 2020 election while federal and state election security experts found no credible evidence of computer fraud in the election. In early December 2020, former Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department did not uncover any evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Harris on Thursday also was endorsed by Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a young White House aide during Trump’s presidency and described during a hearing of Cheney’s Jan. 6 congressional committee how she grew disgusted by Trump’s refusal to stop the rioters that day. Harris’ campaign also began airing ads targeting Republicans, independents and former Trump voters in battleground states.
Liz Cheney is set to continue campaigning against Trump next week in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. She will join three former Trump White House aides who have since become critical of Trump — Hutchinson, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Sarah Matthews — for a Wednesday event in the Philadelphia suburbs, according to a person familiar with the event, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details before they were public. CNN first reported the news of the event, which is being organized by a group called Democracy First, and not the Harris campaign.
Jan. 6 has been a unifying factor for many of Harris’ GOP supporters, who have otherwise shown sharp differences with Democrats in the past and on other issues in this election. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Cheney reiterated on social media that she “has always been strongly pro-life.”
The event coincided with the launch of Wisconsin Republicans for Harris-Walz, which released an open letter Thursday morning backing Harris “to ensure our democracy and our economy remain strong.” The letter has two dozen signees, including three former state legislators.
Information for this article was contributed by Chris Megerian, Michelle L. Price, Joey Cappelletti, Will Weissert and Jonathan J. Cooper of The Associated Press and by Patrick Svitek of The Washington Post.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Ryder Center at Saginaw Valley State University, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in University Center, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
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Publish date : 2024-10-03 21:53:00
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