US Vice President Kamala Harris has decried Donald Trump for inflammatory rhetoric about issues such as Haitian migrants, saying voters should ensure he “can’t have that microphone again”.

In a rare extended interview on Tuesday (US time) with the National Association of Black Journalists, Harris said threats that have disrupted the Ohio city of Springfield following comments amplified by Trump and his running mate JD Vance alleging – without evidence – that immigrants are kidnapping and eating pets had broken her heart.

“There are far too many people in our country right now who are not feeling safe,” Harris said two days after Secret Service agents foiled an apparent assassination attempt on Trump, who has blamed Democratic rhetoric for the latest threat to his life. 

She referenced the threats to immigrants, but also the conservative Project 2025 blueprint for the next Republican administration and a GOP-led effort to restrict abortion access.

“Not everybody has Secret Service,” she said.

“Members of the LGBTQ community don’t feel safe right now, immigrants or people with an immigrant background don’t feel safe right now. Women don’t feel safe right now.”

At the weekend, bomb threats prompted the evacuation of schools and government buildings in Springfield as the Republican campaign spread the stories.

Vance has since admitted the stories about Haitian migrants eating Springfield locals’ pets were not true.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m gonna do because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast,” he told CNN.

Trump continues to repeat the stories. He returned to the campaign trail on Tuesday, for the first time since Sunday’s apparent attempted shooting.

He told a Michigan crowd on Tuesday night that he would impose steep tariffs on products imported from China, Mexico and other countries if he wins the November 5 election.

Trump linked his economic proposals to the events at his West Palm Beach golf course on Sunday and the July shooting in Pennsylvania.

“Then you wonder why I get shot at, right?” he said.

“Only consequential presidents get shot at.”

‘Tropes are age-old’

Harris said she personally had confidence in the Secret Service and felt safe under its protection. She spoke briefly with Trump on Tuesday to express her gratitude that he was safe, but in the interview said his rhetoric should disqualify him from being president again.

“When you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought to understand at a deep level that your words have meaning,” Harris said, without mentioning Trump by name.

“Let’s turn the page and chart a new way forward and say ‘you can’t have that microphone again’.”

Harris said the Republican attacks on Springfield and its migrants were “lies that are grounded in tropes that are age-old”.

The sedate interview in Philadelphia was a contrast to Trump’s appearance before the same organisation a month ago, which turned contentious over matters of race and other issues.

The Trump interview opened a chapter in the campaign in which the Republican candidate repeatedly questioned Harris’ racial identity, baselessly claiming that she had only belatedly “turned black” at some point in her professional career.

Trump has since repeatedly questioned Harris’ racial identity on the campaign trail and during last week’s presidential debate.

Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, has repeatedly dismissed Trump’s remarks as “the same old show”.

In the debate, she said it was a “tragedy” that he had “attempted to use race to divide the American people”.

Asked whether Americans were better off than four years ago when she and President Joe Biden entered office, Harris did not directly answer.

Instead she referenced the state of the economy during the Covid-19 pandemic and brought up her plans to try to lower housing costs and promoted herself – as the Democratic presidential candidate – as a “new generation” of leader.

Harris said her candidacy offered the US a chance at “turning the page on an era that sadly has shown us attempts by some to incite fear to create division in our country”.

-with AAP