Watch live: Harris will rally voters in the Ellipse

Kamala Harris is set to promise Tuesday that she will put country before party and herself during the closing speech of her presidential campaign.

She will speak from the same location where Donald Trump incited the Capitol riot, seeking to highlight the important choice voters must make. You can watch the performance live in the player above.

A week before Election DayThe vice president is expected to use her 7:30 p.m. ET address from the grassy ellipse outside the White House to promise Americans that she will work to improve their lives, while asserting that her Republican opponent He’s doing this only for himself.

Trump “spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other: This is who he is,” Harris will say, according to prepared remarks released by her campaign. “But America, I’m here tonight to say: That’s not who we are.”

She hoped to enhance this contrast by delivering her keystone speech with Trump’s place January 6, 2021spewed false information about the 2020 presidential election that inspired a mob to march on the Capitol and unsuccessfully try to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. With time running out and the race tight, Harris and Trump were both looking for big moments to try to swing the momentum in their favor.

“We believe this space helps crystallize the choices in this election,” Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said of the site, calling it “a powerful visualization of perhaps the most disgraceful example of Donald Trump and how he has used his power for evil.”

Campaign aides have stressed that Harris will not deliver a treatise on democracy, a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s efforts to pass contrast with Trump — or spend too much time focusing directly on the shocking images of that day. Harris aides said the vice president is seeking to make a broader case for why voters should reject Trump and consider what she offers.

“He has a list of enemies that he intends to bring to justice,” Harris says. “He says one of his top priorities is the release of violent extremists who attacked law enforcement officers on January 6. Donald Trump intends to use the United States military against American citizens who simply disagree with him. People he calls “enemies”. from the inside.” This is not a presidential candidate who thinks about how to make your life better.”

Her campaign hoped to attract a huge crowd to the event in Washington. But more importantly, her campaign hopes the environment will help reach voters in states who remain undecided about who to vote for — or whether to vote at all.

The address came days after Harris traveled to Texas, a staunchly Republican state, to appear with megastar Beyoncé and highlight the consequences for women after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It was also a speech designed to register voters in distant battleground states.

The Vice President’s latest address has been in the works for several weeks. But aides hoped her message would have more impact after Trump rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York, where speakers made violent and racist insults. Harris said the event “underscored what I’ve been emphasizing throughout this campaign.”

“He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, on himself and on dividing our country,” she said.

As for Trump, Harris said Monday: “People are literally ready to turn the page. They’re tired of it.”

Ahead of Harris’ speech, Trump addressed reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Tuesday morning to accuse Harris of ending with a message that did not address the everyday concerns of Americans and their kitchen table. concern.

He said Harris continues to “talk about Hitler and the Nazis because her record is terrible,” referring to Harris amplifying her former chief of staff’s warnings that Trump spoke admiringly of the Nazi leader while in office.

Harris aides, many of whom also advised Biden’s campaign before he bowed out, still believe that focusing the race on who Trump is and how he is different will be their strongest message to voters .

“She has already presented her arguments, she has presented evidence. Tonight she is taking stock and trusting in the wisdom of the jury,” said campaign communications director Michael Tyler.

Biden told reporters Tuesday that he would not attend Harris’ speech because the event was “for her,” but he planned to watch it on television.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said it was important that voters in battleground states be reminded of the consequences of their choices this fall, and Harris “really drove home the stakes of this election and the clear contrast in the race.”

He said Harris had stronger arguments on economic policy, reproductive freedom and the issue of chaos and order, adding that she “has a vision that will bring more order, more hope and more joy.”

Ruth Kyari, 78, of Charlottesville, Virginia, attended the pro-democracy rally with her husband.

“I think everyone understands what the ballot says,” she said as she stood in line outside the Treasury building to attend the event. “We will either have an autocrat or freedom.”

Harris spent the day before her speech taping television interviews that aired in Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as well as on Spanish-language radio in Pennsylvania, her campaign said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.