‘No guard rails’: Harris, Obama escalate negative campaign against Trump

Kamala Harris and Barack Obama tell a star-studded Georgia rally Donald Trump will abuse the presidency to pursue his political enemies as voters, including a 100 year old woman, tell The Australian who they want for president | WATCH

Kamala Harris is escalating her negative campaign against Donald Trump’s character in the final stretch of the US election campaign, saying that he will abuse the presidency to pursue his political enemies and warning there willl be no-one around to “control him.”

Speaking at a star-studded Antlanta rally in the key swing state of Georgia, where she was introduced by Barack Obama, Ms Harris warned there would be no “guard rails” on a second term for Mr Trump.

She picked up on damning statements made by Mr Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, who said this week that the former president made admiring statements about Adolf Hitler.

“Take a moment to think about what that means” she said. “That Trump said, quote, ‘Hitler did some good things.’ And that Trump wished he had generals like Hitler’s who would be loyal to Trump.”

“Just a few months ago, the United States Supreme Court told the former president that he is effectively immune no matter what he does in the White House. Now, just imagine Donald Trump with no guard rails.”

Barack Obama holds hands with Kamala Harris at her Georgia rally. Picture: AP.

Ms Harris also refined her sales job to Middle Class America, saying that her focus would be on reducing cost-of-living pressures while warning that Mr Trump’s economic policies would plunge the nation into recession.

“Unlike him, I grew up in a middle class neighborhood with a working mother who kept a strict budget,” Ms Harris said. “I come from the middle class. And I will never forget where I come from.”

In a hip pocket pitch to Americans, Ms Harris warned that Mr Trump’s plan to impose taxes on goods coming into America would amount to a “20 per cent Trump national sales tax on everyday basic necessities which will cost the average family nearly $4000 a year.”

“Donald Trump will raise costs on you and your families,” she warned.

Framing the upcoming battle over the extension of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, Ms Harris said that Mr Trump would “give massive tax cuts to billionaires and the biggest corporations,” while she would give “middle class tax cuts to 100 million Americans.”

Barack Obama also took aim at Donald Trump’s competence. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

She also talked up her expanded child tax credit worth up to $6,000 in tax relief for families with new born children,

“My plan will bring down the cost of housing, cut taxes for small businesses,” she said. “You (small businesses) are the backbone of America’s economy, all of you.”

“And we will lower health care costs, because I believe health care should be a right and not just a privilege of those who can afford it ... Donald Trump, on the other hand, intends to end the Affordable Care Act.”

However, despite promising to stand for a “new way and a joyful way forward”, Ms Harris leaned heavily into the negative campaign she has been waging against Mr Trump’s character and fitness for office.

“This is not 2016 or 2020,” she said. “The stakes are even higher because ... Donald Trump has become more confused, more unstable and more angry. You see it every day. He has become increasingly unhinged.

“Last time, at least, there were people around him who could control him ... This election, they’re not with him.”

Bruce Springsteen was part of a star-studded lineup at the rally. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

Mr Obama, largely reviving the speech he delivered at a rally with Tim Walz in Detroit earlier this week, also took aim at Mr Trump’s competence.

The former president said that if “your grandpa was acting like this, you’d call up your brother, call up your cousin. You say, ‘hey,’ have you noticed grandpa? He’s acting kind of funny right now?”

“He acts so crazy and it’s become so common that people no longer take it seriously.”

Mr Obama also said that people were talking about how the economy was strong under Mr Trump, but argued that it was “good because it was my economy.”

“I had spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans have left me, and then I handed over 75 straight months of job growth to Donald Trump,” he said.

However, Mr Obama’s strongest sales pitch came at the end of his address when he argued that Mr Trump had abandoned traditional American values.

“And one of the most disturbing things about this election and about Trump’s rise in politics is how we seem to have set the values we were taught aside. How we seem to disregard them, how we pretend they don’t matter,” he said.

“And one of the most disturbing things about this ... People make excuses,” he said. “And I’ve noticed this especially with some men who seem to think that Trump’s behaviour is a sign of strength.”

“I am here to tell you that is not what real strength is,” he said. “It never has been. Real strength is about working hard and taking responsibility and telling the truth even when it’s inconvenient.”

“That’s what I want to see in the President of the United States of America.”

The rally featured a star studded line-up including Samuel L. Jackson, Spike Lee, Tyler Perry

and rockstar Bruce Springsteen who also played at the event.

Mr Springsteen said that Mr Trump was running to be an “American tyrant” as he threw his support behind Ms Harris.

“He does not understand this country, its history or what it means to be deeply American, and that’s why, November 5, I’m casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz,” he said.

Springsteen, who has a reputation for his socially conscious, working-class anthems, performed tracks “The Promised Land,” “Land of Hope and Dreams,” and “Dancing in the Dark.”