WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump repeatedly deviated from his economy-focused message Saturday, instead making illogical statements and personal attacks, including declaring three times that he looks better than Vice President Kamala Harris.
At a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania, Trump alternated between making his economic case and making a few insults and imitations of President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The former president appeared to be struggling to adjust to his novel opponent after Democrats replaced their nominee. During campaign appearances last week, he deviated from the policies he was supposed to be talking about and instead resorted to a series of familiar attack lines and insults.
As he began his speech attacking Democrats over inflation, Trump asked his supporters, “You don’t mind if I lose the teleprompter for a second, do you? Joe Biden hates them.”
Joseph Costello, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, responded to Trump in a statement, saying: “Another rally, same old show” and that Trump “resorts to lies, insults and confused tirades” because he cannot sell his agenda.
“The more Americans hear Trump speak, the clearer the choice becomes this November: Vice President Harris is uniting voters with her positive vision of protecting our freedoms, building the middle class and moving America forward – and Donald Trump is trying to set us back,” Costello said.
Trump’s rally in Wilkes-Barre took place in part of a crucial swing state where he hopes conservative, white working-class voters near Biden’s hometown of Scranton will boost Republicans’ chances of retaking the White House.
His comments on Saturday came as Democrats prepare for their four-day convention, which begins Monday in Chicago and will mark the welcome of Harris as their nominee. Her replacement of Biden less than four months before the November election has given novel momentum to the Democrats and their coalition, but also represents a novel challenge for Trump.
Trump attacked Harris on economic issues, linking her to the Biden administration’s inflation problems and comparing her recent anti-price gouging proposal to measures in communist countries. Trump said a federal ban on food price gouging would lead to food shortages, rationing and hunger. On Saturday, he was asked why she had not worked on a solution to the price problem when she and Biden were sworn in in 2021.
“Day one for Kamala was three and a half years ago. Why didn’t she do it then? So today is day 1,305,” Trump said.
To counter high prices, Trump announced that on the first day of his swearing-in as president, he would sign an executive order “directing all Cabinet secretaries and agency heads to use every power at our disposal to bring prices down. But we’re going to bring them down in a capitalist way, not a communist way,” he said.
He predicted financial ruin for the country, and Pennsylvania in particular, if Harris won, citing her past opposition to fracking, a widely used method of oil and gas extraction in the state. Her campaign has tried to soften her stance on fracking by saying she will not ban it, even though that was her position when she ran for president in 2020.
“Her country is going to be ruined anyway. She is totally against fracking,” Trump said.
But he also vacillated between criticism of the disordered withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and imitations of Macron’s French accent.
Trump attacked Harris’ laughter, saying she was “not a very good wordsmith,” and mocked the names of the CNN moderators who moderated the debate between him and Biden in June.
As he began to reflect on Harris’ recent image on the cover of Time magazine, he commented on the image’s resemblance to classic Hollywood icons Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor, and then criticized a Wall Street Journal columnist who commented on Harris’ beauty earlier this month.
“I look much better than her,” Trump said, drawing laughter from the crowd. “I’m a better looking person than Kamala.”
He also had a problem with the way his style was typically portrayed in news reports.
“They’ll say he’s rambling. I’m not rambling. I’m a really smart guy,” he said.
Trump’s rally on Saturday was his fifth at the arena in Wilkes-Barre, the largest city in Luzerne County, where he won the last two elections. Biden defeated Trump in neighboring Lackawanna County, where the Democrat has long emphasized his working-class roots in Scranton.
On Sunday, Harris is planning a bus trip that will begin in Pittsburgh and stop in Rochester, a miniature town further north. Trump has planned a visit to a factory in York that makes containers for nuclear fuel on Monday. Trump’s running mate JD Vance is expected in Philadelphia that day.
Some of Biden’s devoted supporters in Scranton, a former industrial city of 76,000, were enraged that party leadership was trying to pressure the president to resign.
Diane Munley, 63, says she called dozens of members of Congress to lobby for Biden. Munley eventually came to terms with Biden’s decision and is now a robust supporter of Harris.
“I can’t deny the excitement that exists right now for this ticket. I’m so excited,” Munley said. “It just didn’t work out for Joe, and I couldn’t see it at the time because I was so close to him.”
Robert A. Bridy, 64, a laborer from Shamokin, Pennsylvania, traveled to the rally Saturday to show his support for Trump. He said the election in that state was close, adding that his union and a close friend were trying to convince him to vote for Harris and other Democrats, but he had voted for Trump since 2016.
Bridy called Trump a “working man like us.” Trump is a billionaire who made his fortune in real estate.
“He’s a fighter,” Bridy said. “I would like to see closed borders. He doesn’t waste time. He gets straight to the point and takes care of things the way they should be done.” ___
Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Darlene Superville in Arlington, Virginia, contributed to this report.
