Washington: US Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday acknowledged the uphill climb to defeating Donald Trump in November, but said her freshly-minted presidential campaign would prevail over the "wild lies" of her Republican rival.
As Trump prepared to address a bitcoin conference in Tennessee, Harris was speaking at a fundraising event in Massachusetts with celebrity guests including singer-songwriter James Taylor and cellist Yoyo Ma.
"We are the underdogs in this race, but this is a people-powered campaign," she told the crowd at the event, which her campaign said would net $1.4 million.
"You may have noticed, Donald Trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record. And some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it's just plain weird," she said, the latest quip adopted by Democrats in describing the Republicans' attacks.
The latest among them included Trump's remarks to a religious convention Friday night, where he accused Harris of being an anti-Semite who plans to allow the murder of newborn babies.
"She doesn't like Jewish people. She doesn't like Israel. That's the way it is," he said of the vice president, whose husband is Jewish.
In perhaps his most outrageous statement of the night, he claimed Harris wanted to enshrine in federal law the right to "rip the baby out of the womb in the eighth, ninth month and even after birth -- execute the baby after birth."
Trump, who at age 78 is now the oldest major-party nominee in history, is scrambling to reorient an election against someone two decades his junior, having expected to face an 81-year-old incumbent Joe Biden beset by concerns over infirmity.
Seeking to become the first female president in US history, Harris is tasked with rapidly assembling a campaign against an opponent who has been in near permanent reelection mode since he became president in 2016.
Her late-starting White House bid has enjoyed early momentum. Polls that had shown Biden steadily slipping against Trump now show Harris in a race too close to call.
She's garnered support from Democratic heavyweights, including Biden himself and most recently Barack and Michelle Obama.
Torianna Parrish, 34, was among the crowd greeting Harris upon her arrival Saturday afternoon at the airport in Westfield, Massachusetts.
"I wanted to show there's power in numbers. I wanted to show my support," she said.
"We're rooting for her and we want to see her make this country what it needs to be."
Harris was introduced at the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield by Taylor, who said: "Let us honor the woman and the moment and may our ardent support be the wind in her sails. Our hopes go with her and she stands for us all."
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