Donald Trump attempted to reshape his campaign at a rally in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Saturday after polls showed Kamala Harris taking the lead in the key battleground state.
But the former president quickly departed from a prepared speech on the economy and launched into personal attacks on Harris, calling her policies communist and fascist and accusing her of “laughing maniacally.”
Trump focused his written speech on the economy at a nearly full house in an 8,000-seat indoor arena in Wilkes-Barre, and some Republican strategists hoped he could regain the lead by focusing on inflation and other issues where polls show voters give him more credit than Democrats.
President Trump has criticized Harris as part of the Biden administration for the rising prices that have hit many Americans hard, calling rising household costs a “Kamala Harris inflation tax.”
“She was involved in everything,” he said, trying to blame her for Biden’s policies.
Trump also likened Harris’ pledge on Friday to tackle high food prices by targeting food companies’ profiteering and to lower housing and prescription drug costs to the Soviet economic system.
“In his speech yesterday, Mr. Kamala has gone full communist,” he said. “Comrade Kamala announced that he wants to introduce socialist price controls, which you know have never worked before… It will lead to rationing, starvation and rising prices.”
The former president urged voters to ask themselves, “Would we be better off living under Kamala and Biden than under President Donald J. Trump?” and many Pennsylvanians may agree with him.
But its impact quickly faded as Trump again went off script multiple times with incoherent, often downright false, statements about everything from immigration to China to transgender people.
At one point, he even admitted that he did.
“People will say he was rambling. I don’t ramble. I’m a really smart guy, really smart. I don’t ramble. But the other day I hit it too hard and people said he was rambling,” he said.
Some in the audience wore T-shirts that read “I Vote for a Convicted Convict” and encouraged Trump, chanting “Fight, fight, fight”, a reference to the former president’s words after he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt last month.
Returning to his script, Trump criticized Harris for her past opposition to fracking — an unpopular stance in Pennsylvania, a major fracking company — but he would not do himself any favors by saying he would cut spending on infrastructure such as bridges and roads that create jobs in the Rust Belt.
Trump also challenged Harris’ legitimacy as the Democratic presidential nominee, calling it a “coup” against Biden.
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“Joe Biden hates her. This is the downfall of the president,” he said.
Trump confused some in the audience by arguing that if Harris could become the nominee without a primary, then she too should be able to do so given her popularity within the Republican Party.
“I said, ‘Well, why are we having an election? They didn’t have an election. Why are we having an election?'” he said.
Trump described Harris’ decision to pass on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate as anti-Semitic, an apparent reference to the debate over Shapiro’s support for Israel, and in particular whether his Israeli activism was done in Israel’s interest. Israeli Embassy In the past, he has warned that a war in Gaza would damage the Democratic campaign.
“They turned him down because he’s Jewish. So they turned him down. To be politically correct, I wouldn’t say that. I could say they turned him down for a variety of reasons. No, they turned him down because he’s Jewish,” Trump said.
“And I’ll say this: Any Jewish person who votes for her or any Democrat needs to go out and get their head examined.”
All the while, Trump launched a string of personal attacks against Harris, including a bizarre comment about a type of laughter that is particularly popular among younger voters.
“Have you ever heard her laugh? It’s a madman’s laugh. A madman’s laugh, a madman’s laugh,” he said.
