By COLLEEN LONG and CHRIS MEGERIAN
ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Kamala Harris teamed up with Liz Cheney on Monday to make a bipartisan appeal to Republican voters uneasy about Donald Trump, describing the former president as a malignant force that needs to be excised from American politics.
Cheney, a former congresswoman from Wyoming, reminded people that “you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody.”
“There will be millions of Republicans who do that on Nov. 5,” she predicted.
Cheney made the comments in Royal Oak, Michigan, outside of Detroit, during her second of three events with Harris. Their campaign swing began near Philadelphia and was scheduled to end near Milwaukee, reflecting an intense focus on moderate, suburban voters in battleground states.
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During the first event, in Malvern, Pennsylvania, Harris said that Trump “has been using the power of the presidency to demean and to divide us” and “people are exhausted with that.”
“People around the world are watching,” Harris said. “And sometimes I do fret a bit about whether we as Americans truly understand how important we are to the world.”
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, was essentially exiled from the Republican Party for participating in a congressional investigation of Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. She lost her congressional seat in a primary battle two years ago.
Although she disagrees with Harris on some issues, Cheney said her conservative philosophy means prioritizing the Constitution over her political party. She also said she’s concerned about allowing a “totally erratic, completely unstable” Trump to run foreign policy.
“Our adversaries know that they can play Donald Trump,” she said. “And we cannot afford to take that risk.”
Trump lashed out at Cheney on social media on Monday, calling her “dumb as a rock” and accusing her of being a “war hawk.”
The Republican nominee has frequently tried to paint Harris, who is from deep blue California, as a radical liberal, but she struck a moderate tone during her appearance with Cheney.
Harris promised to “invite good ideas from wherever they come” and “cut red tape,” and she said “there should be a healthy two party system” in the country.
“We need to be able to have these good intense debates about issues that are grounded in fact,” Harris said.
“Imagine!” Cheney responded.
“Let’s start there!” Harris said as the audience clapped. “Can you believe that’s an applause line?”
Although Cheney has long described herself as pro-life, she suggested that Republican women should vote for Harris on the issue of reproductive health because restrictions on abortion have gone too far since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Cheney said women aren’t getting the medical care that they need and “we’re seeing people come together to say . . . that’s not sustainable for us as a country, and it has to change.”
Whenever abortion rights have been on the ballot in states, they have succeeded, including in red states. But it’s not clear whether the issue will propel Republican women to the polls in this year’s presidential election.
Harris said she believes that defending abortion rights can appeal to people on both sides of the aisle.
“The American people vote for freedom, regardless of the party with which they’re registered to vote,” she told reporters after arriving in Michigan. Harris also warned that “our daughters are going to have fewer rights than their grandmothers.”
The more intimate settings on Monday were a shift for Harris, whose campaign has mostly focused on rallies with thousands of people. The audiences listened intently to her and Cheney, sometimes nodding along or smiling. During Harris’ story about a young boy who was afraid of a school classroom where there wasn’t a closet to hide from a shooter, some eyes welled with tears.
With just over two weeks to go before the presidential election and the race a dead heat, the Democratic nominee is looking for support from every possible voter. Her campaign is hoping to persuade those who haven’t made up their minds, mobilize any Democrats considering sitting this one out, and pick off voters in areas where support for Trump may be fading. All three of the counties visited by Harris on Monday were won by Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who ran against Trump for the Republican nomination.
A few votes here and there could add up to an overall win. In Waukesha County, for example, Haley won more than 9,000 primary votes even after she dropped out of the race. Overall, Wisconsin was decided for President Joe Biden in 2020 by just 20,000 votes. In-person early voting in the state starts Tuesday.
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Cheney is not the only member of her party to back Harris. More than 100 former Republican officeholders and officials joined Harris last week in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, not far from where Gen. George Washington led hundreds of troops across the Delaware River to a major victory in the Revolutionary War.
Near the end of her campaign, Harris has increasingly focused on Trump’s lies about the election and his role in the violent mob’s failed efforts on Jan. 6, which he has called a “day of love.”
On Monday, Harris repeatedly noted that Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly said that Trump is “fascist to the core.” That’s in Bob Woodward’s latest book.
She also said voters should take Trump’s rhetoric seriously rather than write it off as a “sick sense of humor.”
“Some people find it humorous what he says and it’s just silly,” she said. “But understand how serious it is.”