Why Kamala Harris made her 'closing argument' in front of the White House

• Harris delivered a "closing argument" speech at the same spot Trump held his January 6 rally.
• It was the VP's last chance at crystallizing the message of her short-lived campaign.
• But it also highlighted some of the challenges her campaign has faced.

On Tuesday evening, exactly one week out from the end of the 2024 race, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a speech in the heart of Washington, DC that her campaign described as their "closing argument."

By the conventions of modern presidential campaigns, it was a strange place to do it. DC is obviously not a battleground state. Under the country's electoral system, it's difficult to think of an American city whose citizens' votes matter less in a presidential election.

But the point wasn't to win votes in DC, but for the capital to serve as the stage for a message delivered to the rest of America. Her choice to hold the rally at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park sandwiched between the White House and the Washington Monument, was all-important. The last time a major political figure held a rally here, a portion of that crowd marched one mile east and breached the US Capitol in an effort to halt the certification of the 2020 election.

Harris talked about January 6 in her rally, noting that former President Donald Trump "stood at this very spot" when he delivered his speech that day. She described Trump as "unstable" and "obsessed with revenge." But January 6 wasn't the centerpiece of her speech. She used the word "democracy" just once. The location of her address was intended to do the heavy lifting in getting that point across.

"It's like if something horrible happens in your own home," said Victoria Leacock Hoffman. The 61-year-old DC resident who works in theatre production said she felt a "little anxious pit" in her stomach when she initially learned that Harris' rally would be held on the same site of Trump's infamous speech. "But then I said, 'Oh, she's taking it back."

That seemed to be the point of Tuesday night's rally. In the hours before Harris took the stage, attendees waved miniature American flags and "USA" signs to the rhythm of songs like Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off," Missy Elliot's "Lose Control," and Blacked Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling." It was an effort to recapture the sense of "joy" that was prominent at the outset of Harris' campaign in July. Though most attendees were presumably from the greater Washington metro area, at least one voter said she made the trip all the way from Florida.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event," said Mitzi Maxwell, a 69-year-old retired nonprofit arts manager from Orlando who brought her mother with her to the rally. "And it's compelling that it's in this location."

Harris made use of the White House as her backdrop, dramatically motioning toward the building as she noted that "in less than 90 days, either Donald Trump or I will be in the Oval Office."

But the presence of the building was also a reminder of its current occupant, President Joe Biden, and his conspicuous absence from the rally on Tuesday. Eager to portray herself as a clean break from the past, Harris has created some distance from Biden since his disastrous debate performance prompted a pressure campaign to get him to drop out of the race.

Shortly after the rally ended on Tuesday, a clip of Biden appearing to denigrate Trump supporters began to go viral on social media, underscoring why he's been largely kept at bay.

"I have been honored to serve as Joe Biden's Vice President, but I will bring my own experiences and ideas to the Oval Office," Harris said during her speech. "My presidency will be different, because the challenges we face are different."

As the vice president began her speech, the distance sounds of chants and sirens could be heard from pro-Palestinian protests roughly a hundred yards away, a reminder of the discontent within the Democratic coalition over both Biden and Harris' support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.

Harris' speech was also aimed at providing a sense of focus for a candidate who's had to do a lot of different things at once — re-introducing herself as someone separate from Biden, rolling out a slate of policy proposals (while explaining why they haven't been enacted yet), and making a case against the opponent — all in the span of just three months.

After tackling Trump at the outset, Harris quickly pivoted in her speech toward the economy, assailing Trump's tariff plan as an across-the-board tax on Americans. "Think about it: clothes, food, toys, cellphones," Harris said, listing a variety of consumer goods that are often imported from overseas.

She re-upped her proposal to enact a federal ban on price gouging and spent a significant amount of time on her housing plan. "For years, we have heard excuses about why America can't build enough housing. Enough with the excuses," Harris said. "I'm going to cut the red tape and work with the private sector and local governments to speed up building and get it done."

That gave way to a variation of her typical stump speech, with references to abortion — "one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to simply agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body" — and a slew of statements that appear to be geared more toward on-the-fence Republicans than her own base, including her pledge to sign a bipartisan border security bill into law and an affirmation that under her leadership, the US would have the "strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world."

As far as closing arguments go, it may work — particularly when her opponent's own "closing argument" speech at Madison Square Garden was drowned out by one comedian's offensive joke about Puerto Ricans.