Michelle Obama urges support for Harris in Michigan rally: “This is somebody who understands you”
Former first lady Michelle Obama challenged men to support Kamala Harris ‘ bid to be America’s first female president, warning at a rally in Michigan on Saturday that women’s lives would be at risk if former President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Obama described the assault on abortion rights as the harbinger of dangerous limitations on healthcare for women. Some men may be tempted to vote for Trump because of their anger at the slow pace of progress, Obama said, but “your rage does not exist in a vacuum.”
“If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage,” Obama said. “So are you as men prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children you love and tell them you supported this assault on our safety?”
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
The rally in Kalamazoo was Obama’s first appearance on the campaign trail since she spoke at the Democratic National Convention over the summer, and her remarks were searing and passionate in their support of Harris.
appeared with Beyoncé on Friday in Houston, and she campaigned with former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen on Thursday in Atlanta.
It’s a level of celebrity clout that surpasses anything that Trump, the Republican nominee, has been able to marshal this year. But there’s no guarantee that will help Harris in the close race for the White House. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost to Trump despite firing up her crowds with musical performances and Democratic allies.
Trump brushed off Harris’ attempt to harness star power for her campaign.
“Kamala is at a dance party with Beyoncé,” the former president said Friday in Traverse City, Michigan. Trump held a rally in Novi, a suburb of Detroit, on Saturday before a later event in State College, Pennsylvania.
Saturday is the first day that early in-person voting became available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters.
When Clinton was running against Trump, Michelle Obama inspired Democrats with the slogan “when they go low, we go high.”
But this year, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, she adopted a more biting approach. She accused Trump of “doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better.”
While Harris was with Obama in Michigan, President Biden visited the Laborers’ International Union of North America in Pittsburgh. He mentioned that Harris once walked a picket line with the United Auto Workers — “she has a backbone like a ramrod” — while Trump has undermined organized labor.
“He views unions as getting in the way of the accumulation of wealth for individuals,” Biden said. “It’s in labor’s interest to defeat Donald Trump, more than any other race you’ve been in.”
Biden’s remarks to the mostly male audience referenced the gender divide that has been a consistent feature of this year’s presidential race.
Speaking on Trump, Biden said, “I’m just gonna say straight up, he’s a loser as a man.”
He also said that women deserve more opportunities than they’ve received in the past.
“They can do anything any man can do, including be president of the United States of America,” Biden said.
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Source: cbsnews.com