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(NewsNation) — Vice President Kamala Harris made her case in the swing state of Georgia on Tuesday evening, challenging former President Donald Trump to rethink avoiding a debate with her.
“If you’ve got something to say, say it to my face,” Harris said.
“Ours is a fight for freedom,” the candidate continued. “And I don’t have to tell folks in Atlanta that generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom. And now, the baton is in our hands.”
Harris touched on topics familiar to her platform, like the border, helping middle-class Americans, the right to same-sex marriage and abortion access.
“Because we here all know when our middle class is strong, America is strong,” Harris told the crowd. “And to keep our middle class strong, families need relief from the high cost of living so that they have a chance not just to get by, but to get ahead.”
The front-runner Democratic nominee also criticized Trump for his policies, affiliation with Project 2025 and criminal convictions, portraying herself as his foil due to her history as a prosecutor.
“Donald Trump doesn’t care about border security. He only cares about himself. … As president, I will bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed, and I will sign it,” she said. “And show Donald Trump what real leadership looks like.”
NewsNation senior political correspondent George Will joined “On Balance with Leland Vittert” to break down Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally in Atlanta, Georgia.
While Will, a conservative commentator, was impressed by her demeanor and influence on the crowd, he felt her two biggest talking points — fixing the border and the high cost of living — were lacking specificity.
“What you saw in that speech right there was a complete repudiation of her own record … while she talks about Donald Trump being a criminal, and that little cute line she uses, but she ignores the 10 to 20 million criminals she let into this country,” said Hogan Gidley, former White House deputy press secretary in the Trump administration.
Gidley said everything she mentioned in her speech was “100% false.”
Rachel Palermo, former associate counsel to Kamala Harris, saw her “incredible” 20-minute speech differently.
“She laid out a vision of the future. She talked about wanting to move forward, not backward,” Palermo said, adding that the vice president brought a crowd of thousands to their feet and delivered a message of hope.
Prior to Harris’ speech, rapper Megan Thee Stallion performed hits, and rapper Quavo also took the stage.
Rather than perform, the member of the now-dissolved trio Migos spoke about gun violence. His former bandmate and nephew, Takeoff, was shot and killed outside of a Houston bowling alley in 2022.
Quavo teamed up with Harris before her presidential campaign ever started, welcoming the vice president to a summit against gun violence in June 2024.
The rapper duo is just the latest in Harris’ star-studded endorsements, with George Clooney, Barbara Streisand, Mark Hamill and Spike Lee voicing their support for her White House bid in the week since President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 presidential race.
Notably, megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter gave Harris permission to use her song “Freedom” in her campaign.
The Hill contributed to this report.
