ANALYSIS — If Vice President Kamala Harris has a legislative action plan, she opted against sharing it during a town hall meeting Wednesday evening in Pennsylvania.

The Democratic presidential candidate largely addressed voters’ questions about her top legislative priority and largely recited portions of her campaign speech during a more than hour-long town hall meeting in the suburbs of Philadelphia, one of the battleground must-win states. When asked about expanding the Supreme Court, Harris vaguely supported “some reform of the court.”

Harris has likely failed to prove to undecided voters that she can, to use a football analogy, make all the throws — even if she is unable or unwilling to point out a professional mistake from which she learned has.

However, when she deviated from that short script, she criticized Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, for his absence and his record as president. She claimed Trump was guilty of repeatedly “fanning the flames of hate.”

The vice president didn’t wait long to pick up where she left off before leaving her official residence in Washington, DC. She delivered impromptu remarks after John Kelly, the chief of staff to Trump’s White House chief of staff, told the New York Times that he had once heard his remarks. The then-chief pined for military generals like those of Adolf Hitler.

“The American people deserve to have a president who promotes healthy debate (and works on a bipartisan basis),” Harris said Wednesday night, “but he also maintains certain standards about how we think about the role and responsibility.” “And certainly not to compare yourself with Hitler in an obviously admiring way.”

Harris made the comments in Chester Township, Delaware County, just outside Philadelphia. President Joe Biden easily won the district in 2020, receiving 62.9 percent of the vote compared to 36.1 percent for Trump. Hillary Clinton also made it there in 2016, winning 59.6 percent to Trump’s 37.2 percent.

But nationally, the picture is very different: According to several recent polls, Harris and Trump are in a dead heat in the must-win commonwealth. Some polls conducted in recent weeks have shown a slight shift toward Trump, with both FiveThirtyEight’s national metrics and RealClearPolitics’ state metrics showing a collective shift toward Trump — albeit well within the margin of error of most polls. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales evaluated Pennsylvania in the Toss-Up column.

Here are four takeaways after Harris answered questions from undecided voters and CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Trump a fascist?

Asked by Cooper if she believes Trump is a fascist, as Kelly has said, the vice president responded without hesitation: “Yes, I do.”

Earlier in the day, Harris said, “He wants a military that will be loyal to him personally, one that will obey his orders even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the Constitution of the United States.”

“Donald Trump has become increasingly unhinged and unstable, and in a second term people like John Kelly would not be there to counter his tendencies and actions,” she said.

Trump’s camp quickly responded: Communications Director Steven Cheung described the vice president as “a stone-cold loser who is becoming increasingly desperate as she lashes out, and her campaign is in shambles,” adding, “That’s why she continues to spread outright lies” and untruths , which are easy to refute.”

Harris didn’t let up Wednesday night, saying she believes Kelly is “making an emergency call to the American people” and saying Trump “disrespects the Constitution of the United States.”

The Capitol stumbles

Harris was clearly struggling when a political science professor named Carol in the audience asked which legislation she would prioritize if elected if she could only get one through Congress.

However, Harris made no mention of her proposed tax cuts for the middle class, her proposals for government support for small businesses, nor Medicare proposals or other parts of her plan. Your proposal to offer help to first-time home buyers was only mentioned in passing.

As on other occasions during the town hall and some of her recent television interviews, Harris’ answers flowed almost verbatim into parts of her short speech.

She vowed to “work across the aisle” on a range of issues, including seeking to restore federal abortion access rights. During an interview with NBC News on Tuesday night, she said she would not consider any concessions Republican lawmakers might demand on abortion laws.

But when Cooper asked whether there weren’t enough votes in the House on any abortion measure, Harris spoke of the need to “address the filibuster.” That’s the Senate’s current rule, which effectively requires 60 votes to pass legislation in that chamber.

Cooper also noted that Harris had called Trump’s southern border wall “stupid,” but pointed out that she had supported a Senate immigration package – which had been rejected by Republican senators at Trump’s behest – that included $650 million for the building the wall would have donated. Harris has been a vocal supporter of that Senate package, but on Wednesday night she never committed to being in favor of the wall, even though that was a concession that White House officials and Democratic senators gave up when negotiating the package she is signing as president wanted to win other provisions.

Fog of war

Facing a possible revolt by Arab-American voters in Michigan and other states over the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza, Harris did not lay out a new plan for ending the fighting.

She offered a rhetorical olive branch to the bloc, saying “far too many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed” and calling the tens of thousands who have died in Gaza “ruthless.”

Harris said her goal is to “end this war” and “bring the (Israeli) hostages home” and then “work toward a two-state solution.”

However, she did not say she would be tougher on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than Biden. Analysts have questioned how much influence, if any, the current government has over Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, at an event early Wednesday in Georgia, Trump said Netanyahu had called him multiple times this week alone – and claimed that the Israeli leader had not listened to Biden.

What the hell?

Harris has lashed out at Republicans over fracking, which is a major source of jobs and economic strength in Pennsylvania.

She repeated her postponed promise not to try to ban the extraction method if elected. As the Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, she opposed fracking.

But the why was missing as she did not clearly state her position on the issue. She simply said she wanted to continue with her planned investments in a “clean energy future” and “not ban fracking.”

Some other prominent Democratic officials, such as Connecticut Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, said their about-face on the issue was due to technological advances that have made fracking cleaner.