LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) — Joy Olson proudly wore a “Make America Joyful Again” button Thursday as she waited in line to attend a Kamala Harris rally. But that doesn’t mean the 70-year-old retiree with the happiest of names wants the Democratic nominee to shy away from taking the heat to Republican Donald Trump.
“I’m tired of her being so nice sometimes,” said Olson, who called Trump “evil and scary.” She added: “I hope she calls him out.”
That’s exactly what the vice president is doing as the campaign enters its final days.
Less than three weeks from Election Day, Harris is closing out her campaign painting a dark vision of the country if Trump is sent back to the White House, including airing video clips at her own rallies of the Republican nominee’s more alarming rhetoric.
“Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged and will stop at nothing to claim unchecked power for himself,” Harris said Thursday in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
It’s a far cry from the “joy” that swirled around her elevation to the top of the Democratic ticket this summer. As that surge of enthusiasm has eased, Harris is staking her campaign on increasingly sharp attacks on Trump meant to get her supporters to turn out and to win over the tiny universe of persuadable voters left in exceedingly tight battleground states.
At her La Crosse rally, she noted that Trump falsely claimed this week that the violent Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, was “a day of love.”
“There were attacks on law enforcement,” she said, recalling the insurrection where Trump supporters tried to block the counting of electoral votes that formalized President Joe Biden’s victory. “The American people are exhausted with his gaslighting. Enough! We are ready to turn the page!”
“Roll the clip,” she said a week earlier, directing a rally audience to watch a video of the former president calling for rooting out an “enemy within” the country.
This article was originally published in AP