Harris campaigns across Philly; Biden returning this week; Trump speaker calls Puerto Rico an 'island of garbage'

As Kamala Harris started speaking to congregants at a Black Evangelical church in West Philadelphia, a woman in the balcony shouted: “You already won!”

The vice president’s response was immediate: “God expects us to help him,” she said, pointing upward. “We got work to do.”

How heavily Philadelphia turns out in the next nine days could be the key to whether Harris wins Pennsylvania. And on a sunny autumn Sunday, Harris stopped in Black and Latino neighborhoods from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., reinforcing the city’s importance.

In her final event of a busy day in Philadelphia, Vice President Kamala Harris urged Philadelphians to get out to vote at a rally of a few thousand people at a youth basketball center in North Philadelphia.

“We know this is going to be a tight race until the very end,” she said at the Alan Horwitz "Sixth Man" Center. “But hard work is good work. Hard work is joyful work and make no mistake, we will win.”

Polls show a 50-50 race in Pennsylvania, a state that has remained stubbornly close since Harris made up some ground from where President Joe Biden had been polling when she became the nominee.

Speaking ahead of former President Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, podcaster and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.”

“I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Hinchcliffe said Sunday afternoon.

"As a Puerto Rican, I am tempted to call Hinchcliffe racist garbage but doing so would be an insult to garbage," Rep. Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.), wrote on social media. "When casting their ballots at the voting booth, Latinos should never forget the racism that Donald Trump seems all too willing to platform."

Ahead of a mid-sized rally at the Alan Horwitz “Sixth Man” Center in North Philadelphia, Harris met with middle school basketball players after they wrapped some layup drills.

They talked about how Middle School is “kinda weird,” and the importance of doing well in school.

The team also broke down for Harris a recent loss to a taller and seemingly older opponent. “Skill can make up for height,” the 5’4” Harris said.

A wall of police and Secret Service vehicles separated Philly Cuts barbershop — where Kamala Harris talked with customers and local politicians — from the impromptu gathering of supporters who craned their necks to catch a glimpse of their candidate on the other side of the street.

Many of the onlookers had been shopping at the nearby Grocery Outlet, when the block was suddenly inundated with security vehicles. As a result, many of the onlookers were people who simply lived nearby and had stuck around to see Harris if at all possible.

For this crowd, near the University of Pennsylvania, abortion rights came up again and again as a key reason for their support of Harris.

President Joe Biden will visit Philadelphia on Friday to “give remarks on his administration’s historic support for unions,” according to a White House official.

The official appearance comes just days before the election and is intended to convey Biden’s work to “lower costs and provide good-paying jobs for communities across America,” the official said.

Biden and Harris have not appeared together since she became the nominee in the state and there are currently no scheduled plans for them to campaign together before Election Day, a week from Tuesday.

On her third of five neighborhood stops in Philadelphia today, Vice President Kamala Harris went to Hakim's Bookstore, a longstanding Black-owned bookstore along 52nd Street in West Philadelphia.

She was greeted by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, State Sen. Vincent Hughes and Hughes’ mother, Ann Hughes. Harris hugged Ann Hughes, who said she looked thin.

“I plan to put on some pounds once this is over,” Harris told her.

Vice President Harris walked into Philly Cuts at 44th and Chestnut to a crush of reporters and some assembled supporters in the three-story barbershop in a converted rowhouse.

“This is kind of a sacred space,” State Rep. Jordan Harris said, greeting the vice president.

“It’s not my first time,” she said.

Attendees at West Philadelphia’s Church of Christian Compassion cited a range of reasons for supporting Kamala Harris, from material benefits they have seen under Joe Biden’s administration to common decency that they find lacking on the Republican side of the ticket.

For Sharon Neilson, the lies and attacks that Donald Trump frequently indulges in are a huge turn off.

“I feel like with Trump I'm living in an alternate universe where facts and truth don't matter,” said Neilson. “Before the era of Trump there were Republicans and Democrats but there was common integrity and honesty. And that has been displaced by meanness and anger. I think it's very un-American.”

Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a hopeful address to church congregants, quoting scripture and encouraging them to get out to vote nine days before the election at Church of Christian Compassion.

As Harris started her remarks a woman shouted: “You already won.”

“God needs us to help him!” she said, kicking off the day of campaign events in the critical city.

Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R., Ohio) sparred with CNN’s Jake Tapper over host of issues Sunday morning, including the former president’s comments about using the military on American citizens.

In an interview that aired on State of the Union Sunday, Tapper pressed Vance over Trump’s repeated comments to use the military to go after critics and those he holds a grudge against, which he broadly refers to as “the enemy within.” Some specific names he’s mentioned include Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), Adam Schiff (D., Calif), and former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, whom Trump has said should face a war tribunal.

“He’s talking about people rioting after the election,” Vance said, claiming Trump only said he wanted to use the military against “far left lunatics — people who riot in the wake of an election.”

Parishioners at Church of Christian Compassion in West Philadelphia are awaiting the arrival of Vice President Kamala Harris who is slated to attend church services here and address the congregation with just nine days until Election Day.

Church members went through Secret Service sweeps to get into the building in the Cobbs Creek section of the city.

Harris is scheduled to make several stops in predominantly Black and Latino sections of Philadelphia today. She’ll visit a barbershop, a book store, a Puerto Rican restaurant and then end the day at a community center in North Philly.

 Michelle Obama challenged men to support Kamala Harris' bid to be America’s first female president, warning at a rally in Michigan on Saturday that women’s lives would be at risk if Donald Trump returned to the White House.

The former first lady described the assault on abortion rights as the harbinger of dangerous limitations on health care for women. Some men may be tempted to vote for Trump because of their anger at the slow pace of progress, Obama said, but “your rage does not exist in a vacuum.”

”If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage,” Obama said. “So are you as men prepared to look into the eyes of the women and children you love and tell them you supported this assault on our safety?”

Vice President Kamala Harris is spending all of Sunday in Philadelphia, crisscrossing the city in a series of neighborhood events to turn out voters in the final stretch of the election, according to a senior campaign official.

The more intimate community events will fall just nine days before Election Day in a race that has remained a dead heat for months. Turnout in Philadelphia could be the determining factor in whether Harris can carry the critical state.

Harris’ full-day tour will focus on predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods. She’ll attend services Sunday morning and deliver remarks at a Black church in West Philadelphia, the campaign official said. She’ll also visit a barbershop in West Philadelphia.

Former President Donald Trump is holding a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City Sunday to kick off the final week of the 2024 campaign.

Doors are scheduled to open at noon, and Trump is set to begin speaking around 5 p.m., though he was an hour and 40 minutes late to his rally Saturday at Penn State.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, UFC CEO Dana White, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson are among those expected to attend Sunday's rally, according to the campaign.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker brought star power together Saturday night on the Parkway to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Parker was joined by award-winning actors Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Tessa Thompson, and Brian Tyree Henry outside a restaurant called The Hadley at Park Towne Place.

The celebrities emphasized the importance of Philadelphia for a Harris victory, drew parallels between Parker’s history-making election as the city’s first woman mayor and Harris’s potential to be the first woman president, and — at least from De Niro — mixed in some vulgarities toward former President Donald Trump.

In 2008, Bruce Springsteen approached then-Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s campaign with one request:

Let me help out with a voter registration rally on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

And soon enough, the Boss was strumming his guitar as City Hall towered behind him.

In the final days of the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump visited Pennsylvania State University to appeal to younger voters in the Happy Valley, delivering a dark, 90-minute speech Saturday in which he described immigrants as “garbage” and said “many people will die” without the massive deportation plan he has promised if elected to a second term.

“We’ve become like a garbage can for the rest of the world,” Trump told the crowd at the college’s Bryce Jordan Center, reiterating a term that has recently entered his stump speeches. “They’re throwing all their garbage into our country.”

The former president, the Republican nominee, criticized his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for allowing immigration to increase during the administration of President Joe Biden, calling America a “dumping ground for nations all over the world. They’re dumping people into our country they don’t want because they’re too dangerous and too expensive.”