WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) – Former President Donald Trump Repeatedly from a message focused on the economy on Saturday.
During a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania, Trump wound back and forth between hitting his points on economic policy and offering insults and impressions of President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.
After the Democrats changed their nominee, the former president appeared to be struggling to adjust to his new opponent. For the past week, he Different during campaign appearances Straying from the principles he was supposed to be talking about, he was instead diverted to a familiar cycle of attack lines and insults.
As he attacked Democrats for inflation at the top of his speech, Trump asked his supporters, “You don’t mind if I turn off the teleprompter for a second, do you? Joe Biden hates her.
Trump’s rally in Wilkes-Barre was in a key battleground state where he hopes conservative, white working-class voters near Biden’s hometown of Scranton will boost the Republican’s chances of winning back the White House.
His comments came Saturday as Democrats prepare for their four days of caucuses National Conference It begins Monday in Chicago and will mark the party’s reception of Harris as their nominee. His replacement of Biden less than four months before the November election has reinvigorated Democrats and their coalition. It also presents a new challenge for Trump.
Trump hammered Harris on the economy, linking him to the inflation woes of the Biden administration. His latest plan against inflation Action should be taken in communist countries. Trump has said that if the federal government imposes a ban on food price hikes, it will lead to food shortages, food shortages and starvation. He asked Saturday why he and Biden aren’t working to address prices when they take office in 2021.
“One day three and a half years ago for Kamala. So why didn’t she do it? So this is day 1,305,” Trump said.
To address high prices, Trump said he would sign an executive order on his first day in office, “directing every cabinet secretary and company head to use every power we have to lower prices, but we’re going to lower them.” In a capitalist way, not in a communist way,” he said.
If Harris wins, he predicts financial ruin for the country, especially Pennsylvania. Her past opposition to frackingA commonly used oil and gas extraction process in the state. her The campaign tried to soften her up While the position on fracking says it won’t ban it, Her condition As he seeks the 2020 presidential nomination.
“Your state will be ruined anyway. He is absolutely against fracking,” Trump said.
But he veered from tearing apart the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 to recording Macron’s French accent.
Trump attacked Harris’ laughter and called him “not a very good speaker” and mocked the names of CNN anchors who moderated his debate with Biden in June.
When he started thinking about Harris’ recent picture on the cover of Time magazine, he commented on the image’s resemblance to classic Hollywood icons Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor.
Things to know about 2024 elections
“I’m prettier than her,” Trump said, drawing laughter from the crowd. “I am prettier than Kamal.”
He also took issue with the way his style was commonly portrayed in news reports.
“They say he wanders. I didn’t wander. I’m very smart,” he said.
Trump’s Saturday rally will be his fifth at the arena in Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County’s largest city, where he has won the past two elections. Biden bested Trump in Lackawanna County, a neighborhood where the Democrat has long promoted his working-class roots in Scranton.
On Sunday, Harris plans a bus trip that starts in Pittsburgh and stops in Rochester, a small city to the north. Trump plans to visit a nuclear fuel container plant in York on Monday. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, is expected to be in Philadelphia that day.
Some of Biden’s loyal supporters in this former industrial city of 76,000 were upset to see party leaders pressure the president to step aside.
Diane Munley, 63, says she called dozens of members of Congress to vouch for Biden. Munley eventually came around to Biden’s conclusion and is now very supportive of Harris.
“I can’t deny the excitement about this ticket right now. I’m very interested in that,” Munley said. “It didn’t happen with Joe, I couldn’t see it at the time because I was so attached to him.”
Robert A. Priddy, 64, a laborer from Shamokin, Pennsylvania, traveled to the rally Saturday to show support for Trump. He said the election is tight at this point, and his union and a close friend are trying to convince him to vote for Harris and other Democrats, but he has voted for Trump since 2016.
Bridi called Trump “a working-class guy like us.” Trump is a billionaire who built his fortune in real estate.
“He’s a fighter,” Bridi said. “I like to see closed boundaries. He doesn’t mess around. He gets right to it and takes care of business the way it should be. ___
Price announced from New York. Associated Press writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
