In underlining his support for Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Atlanta on Thursday night, the filmmaker and entertainment mogul Tyler Perry assailed former President Donald J. Trump in direct and somber terms.
Mr. Perry, who built an expansive career in Atlanta with an array of popular movies and television shows depicting Black life in America, told a crowd of 23,000 gathered in a high school football stadium that he knew he could never support Mr. Trump after learning of the full-page ad he had purchased calling for the Central Park Five to be put to death and of his promotion of lies concerning former President Barack Obama’s birthplace.
“I’ve watched him, from the Central Park Five to Project 2025,” Mr. Perry said of Mr. Trump, before formally endorsing Mr. Harris, “and what I realized is that in this Donald Trump America, there is no dream that looks like me.”
Mr. Perry’s speech stood in sharp contrast to the lighter talking points about voting and community organizing that have often defined Democratic events this election cycle. He has donated millions to local causes in Atlanta, such as paying for students’ college tuition and purchasing homes for low-income people, and he said that Ms. Harris’s promises to lower health care costs made her “a candidate that I can stand with.”
Onstage on Thursday night, Mr. Perry discussed a litany of policies around immigration, health care and housing. He also marked a contrast between his life story and that of Mr. Trump, who he said had “a father who had millions of dollars” and could not understand the struggles of lower- and working-class Black voters.
“If you are like me,” said Mr. Perry, who was once homeless in Atlanta, “I worked my ass off to buy my first house, to build my business and take care of my family.”
Still, Mr. Perry’s most pointed argument perhaps came through his most recognizable character, Madea, a no-nonsense maternal figure whom he has portrayed in some of his most popular movies. Referring to Mr. Trump’s statement at the presidential debate last month that he has “concepts of a plan” for health care policy, he invoked one of Madea’s catchphrases: “What the hell?”
Mr. Perry’s remarks, which he said he was delivering just after casting his ballot for Ms. Harris, underscore the urgency that Georgia Democrats are feeling in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. Over two million voters have already cast ballots in the state, more than the early voting record of roughly 1.8 million, set around this time in 2020. Democrats are especially eager to increase enthusiasm in the Atlanta metropolitan area, the deep-blue engine of the battleground state. Mr. Perry encouraged those in the crowd to vote, reminding them of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s razor-thin margin of victory in 2024.
“I stand here, full-throated, with my full chest, begging you, imploring you: Let’s get out and make Kamala Harris the 47th president of the United States,” he said.
In addition to Mr. Perry, the filmmaker Spike Lee and the actor Samuel L. Jackson also spoke at Ms. Harris’s rally, and Bruce Springsteen performed. The vice president has attracted considerable star power during her campaign. She has also appeared with Stevie Wonder, Lizzo and Usher, and Beyoncé is set to appear at a rally for her in Texas on Friday.
Morgan Ackley, Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman in Georgia, criticized Thursday’s event in a statement, saying that “a free concert and an Obama visit isn’t going to convince Georgians to vote for another four years of open borders, rising prices and disaster at home and abroad.” Mr. Obama also spoke at Ms. Harris’s rally.
In his remarks, Mr. Perry celebrated the country’s diversity. “We are all shapes, sizes and colors, but we are one,” he said. “It was so important for me to stand with a candidate who understands that we, as America, we are a quilt. And I could never stand with a candidate who wants us to be a sheet.”
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