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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has given a profane and conspiracy-laden speech two days before the presidential election, as his Democratic rival Kamala Harris spoke at a historically Black church in the battleground state of Michigan.
Opinion polls show the pair locked in a tight race, with Vice President Harris, 60, bolstered by strong support among women voters while former President Trump, 78, gains ground with Hispanic voters, especially men.
In remarks on Sunday that bore no resemblance to his standard speech in the campaign’s closing stretch, Trump spoke about reporters being shot and suggested he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.
The former president also resurrected old grievances about being prosecuted after trying to overturn his defeat four years ago.
Trump intensified his verbal attacks against a “grossly incompetent” national leadership and the American media, steering his Pennsylvania rally at one point onto the topic of violence against members of the press.
In a meandering 90-minute rally speech two days before Tuesday’s US presidential election, Trump noted gaps in the glass panes around him.
The former president has survived two attempted assassinations this year, including being grazed in the ear by a gunman’s bullet during a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Surveying the gaps, Trump said: “To get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news and I don’t mind that so much.”
Unrestrained rhetoric
His rhetoric has become increasingly unrestrained in the campaign‘s final weeks.
Arizona’s top prosecutor on Friday opened an investigation after Trump suggested prominent Republican critic and former congresswoman Liz Cheney should face gunfire in combat.
He said Cheney would not be willing to support foreign wars if she had “nine barrels shooting at her”.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung issued a statement after the media remarks on Sunday, saying Trump was looking out for the media’s safety.
“The president’s statement about protective glass placement has nothing to do with the media being harmed or anything else. It was about threats against him that were spurred on by dangerous rhetoric from Democrats,” the statement said.
Trump spent a considerable amount of his speech attacking the news media at the rally, at one point gesturing to TV cameras and saying, “ABC, it’s ABC, fake news, CBS, ABC, NBC. These are, these are, in my opinion, in my opinion, these are seriously corrupt people.”
Harris in Michigan
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, meanwhile, told a Michigan church congregation on Sunday that God offers America a “divine plan strong enough to heal division”.
The two candidates offered starkly different tones with the campaign almost at an end, as Harris said voters can reject “chaos, fear and hate”.
She concentrated on Michigan, beginning the day with a few hundred parishioners at Detroit’s Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ. It marked the fourth consecutive Sunday that Harris, who is Baptist, has spoken to a Black congregation, reflecting how critical Black voters are across multiple battleground states.
“I see faith in action in remarkable ways,” she said in remarks that quoted the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. “I see a nation determined to turn the page on hate and division and chart a new way forward. As I travel, I see Americans from so-called red states and so-called blue states who are ready to bend the arc of history toward justice.”
She never mentioned Trump, though she’s certain to return to her more conventional partisan speech in stops later Sunday. But Harris did tell her friendly audience that “there are those who seek to deepen division, sow hate, spread fear and cause chaos.”
The election and “this moment in our nation,” she continued, “has to be about so much more than partisan politics. It must be about the good work we can do together.”
After her Detroit appearance, Harris was due to head to East Lansing, Michigan, a college town in an industrial state that is viewed as a must-win for the Democrat.
Trump was due to speak in Kinston, North Carolina, before ending his day with an evening rally in Macon, Georgia.
Of the seven US states seen as competitive, Georgia and North Carolina are the second-biggest prizes up for grabs on Tuesday, with each holding 16 of the 270 votes a candidate needs to win in the state-by-state Electoral College to secure the presidency. Pennsylvania is first with 19 electors.