Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election

Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) jumps on stage as he joins former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on October 5, 2024. Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris slammed her White House rival Donald Trump’s “lies” over reproductive rights Sunday, as both candidates sought an edge in the final month of a deadlocked US presidential election.

Polls have the Republican and Democratic candidates neck and neck, fueling a high-cost, high-intensity scramble for each and every wavering voter in the seven key states that are likely to decide the outcome on November 5.

In her bid to reach those voters, the vice president is taking to the airwaves in the coming week with a host of television, radio and podcast appearances.

READ: Trump urges ‘violent’ police crackdown, insults Harris

She began her media flurry with an appearance Sunday on the podcast “Call Her Daddy” — one of the most popular programs on Spotify — that focuses on advice and issues affecting women.

Addressing reproductive issues and abortion — which Democrats view as major vote winners among undecided voters — Harris took particular exception to Trump’s repeated insistence that he is a “protector” of women’s rights.

“This is the same guy who said that women should be punished for having abortions,” she said.

At one point Harris was asked how she felt when she heard Trump, in their presidential debate last month, say that some Democratic states allow the “execution” of babies after birth.

READ: Kamala Harris heading to North Carolina to survey Helene’s aftermath

In an impassioned reply, Harris denounced that as “a bold-faced lie,” something “outrageously inaccurate” and “insulting to women.”

“This guy,” she added, “is full of lies.”

‘Got out and vote’

Trump meanwhile urged supporters in battleground Wisconsin, which he lost in 2020, to get out the vote during his fourth visit to the state in eight days.

Harris was there earlier this week, holding a rally in Ripon, birthplace of the Republican Party, where she appealed to moderate and disgruntled conservatives.

Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris (C), visits a Hurricane Helene donation drop-off site for emergency supplies which will be sent to impacted Western North Carolina communities on October 5, 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Agence France-Presse

“I’m only asking you to do one thing,” Trump told the crowd in the town of Juneau. “Just go out and vote.”

Trump also repeated false allegations that the Biden-Harris administration had redirected relief funds for areas devastated by Hurricane Helene and spent it on migrant programs.

Harris, he said, is “someone who steals your wealth and abandons your family when the flood waters rise.”

Trump’s visit to Wisconsin came on the back of a theatrical campaign return on Saturday to the same venue in Butler, Pennsylvania where he narrowly avoided a would-be assassin’s bullet back in July.

The former president campaign’s team had hoped to recapture the momentum he enjoyed at that time — riding high in the polls before President Joe Biden upended the race by withdrawing and being replaced by Harris.

In a long, often rambling speech delivered from behind bulletproof glass, Trump suggested his political opponents may have been behind the failed assassination bid.

“Those who want to stop us… have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and who knows, maybe even tried to kill me,” he told tens of thousands of supporters who had gathered for the event.

The gunman, who was shot dead, was a registered Republican and investigators have found no motive — and no political link — to his attempt on the former president’s life.

Media blitz

Harris spent Saturday in North Carolina, meeting relief workers and residents in one of the areas most impacted by Helene, which left a trail of destruction across half a dozen states and more than 220 people dead.

Later in the week, she will also be a guest on ABC’s “The View,” as well as “The Howard Stern Show” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” — all of which are seen as generally sympathetic to the Harris campaign.

And former president Barack Obama will add his star power by stumping for Harris in key swing states from Thursday right through until election day, the campaign says.