Michelle Obama issued a scathing indictment of Donald Trump on Saturday at a rally in Michigan for Kamala Harris, calling the former president an existential threat to women’s rights and telling men that a vote for Trump “is a vote against us.”
The former first lady, in a reprise of her passionate and often cutting remarks this summer at the Democratic National Convention, expressed hope and fear in equal turn, touting Harris’ bravery and compassion while openly agonizing over the prospect of Trump’s return to the White House. By the time she introduced and embraced Harris, Obama’s voice was nearly trembling — gripped by worry and frustrated by a race that, she insisted, should not be as close as the polls suggest.
“By every measure, she has demonstrated that she’s ready,” Obama said of Harris. “The real question is, as a country, are we ready for this moment?”
Addressing a raucous, adoring crowd in Kalamazoo, Obama spoke frankly and often in bleak terms about the implications for women — and “the men who love us” — if the federal government, led by the president, is not inclined to cushion the blow of state abortion bans.
“Please, please do not hand our fates over to the likes of Trump, who knows nothing about us, who has shown deep contempt for us,” Obama said. “Because a vote for him is a vote against us, against our health, against our worth.”
Harris’ Kalamazoo rally — or “Kamala-zoo,” as the former first lady joked — followed another reproductive rights-themed event on Friday night in Houston, where music superstar Beyoncé endorsed the vice president and issued a similar message of faith and fear.
“I’m not here as a celebrity. I’m not here as a politician,” the singer said. “I’m here as a mother.”
Harris in Houston spoke directly to male voters, saying, “Men across America do not want to see their daughters and wives and sisters and mothers put at risk because their rights have been taken.”
Obama in Michigan made a similar overture, but often in more vivid, painfully detailed terms.
“If your wife is shivering and bleeding on the operating room table during a routine, the delivery gone bad, her pressure dropping as she loses more and more blood, or some unforeseen infection spreads and her doctors aren’t sure if they can act — you’ll be the one praying that it’s not too late,” Obama said. “You’ll be the one pleading for somebody, anybody to do something.”
To the women watching, Obama asked that they either try to convince undecided friends and family members to vote for Harris or that they strike out on their own.
“If you are a woman who lives in a household of men that don’t listen to you or value your opinion, just remember that your vote is a private matter,” Obama said. “You get to use your judgment and cast your vote for yourself and the women in your life. Remember, women standing up for what is best for us can make the difference in this election.”
That appeal to moderate Republicans and conservatives disillusioned by the Trump brand of Republican politics has been another theme of Harris’ campaign in the closing weeks of the campaign.
“Kamala, she is putting herself out there fearlessly, facing down even her harshest critics. She’s seeking out Republicans to find common ground,” Obama said. “Unlike her opponent, she’s not ducking interviews or cowering in safe spaces only with fawning audience. She’s showing us what a sane, stable leader looks like.”
After a spelling out a litany of criticism against Trump, his “horrible behavior” and what she described as his bumbling pandemic response, Obama — again — offered a glimpse of her own anxiety.
“With all that being said, I got to ask myself, ‘Well, why on Earth is this race even close?’” Obama said. “I lay awake at night wondering what in the world is going on.”
Harris, who has been on a dayslong swing-state blitz, with the exception of her star-studded event in Texas, focused her remarks on now-familiar themes and lines of attacks, again contrasting Trump’s “enemies list” with her “to-do list.”
“Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails,” Harris said. “He who will claim unchecked and extreme power if he is reelected, he who has vowed he will be a dictator on Day 1, he who has said he wished he had generals like Hitler, who calls Americans who disagree with him ‘the enemy from within.’”
Standing behind a podium with a presidential seal, Harris pointed to Trump’s previous call to terminate the Constitution and restore him to power, saying the comments alone should disqualify him.
“Never again, never again,” she said.
Harris received raucous applause as she delivered the passion-filled line, the loudest response to the vice president of the evening.
Speaking in a typically blue-leaning county that President Joe Biden won by about 20 points in 2020, Harris also made a direct appeal to younger voters — including those in Kalamazoo, which is home to multiple colleges.
“Generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom, and now the baton is in our hands,” she said, asking, “Can I see Gen Z?” — which prompted a cheer from some younger attendees.
“I love you guys,” Harris said, adding, “Of the many things that I just think are so great about you, you are rightly impatient for change.
“I love that.”