Donald Trump tried to boost his campaign at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, as polls show Kamala Harris taking the lead in key states.
But the former president quickly moved away from his prepared speech on economic issues to launch personal attacks on Harris, including accusing her of seeing her agenda as both communist and fascist, and of having “the laugh of a madwoman.”
Trump’s written speech, delivered to an 8,000-seat arena in Wilkes-Barre, focused on economic policy. Some Republican strategists hoped the former president could regain the initiative by focusing on issues where opinion polls show voters have more confidence in Trump than Democrats, such as inflation.
Trump attacked Harris as a member of the Biden administration for the price hikes that have hit many Americans hard and described the rising household costs as “Kamala Harris’ inflation tax.”
“She was there for everything,” he said, trying to pin the blame on her for Biden’s policies.
Trump also compared Harris’ pledge Friday to tackle high food costs by targeting corporate profits and to lower housing and prescription drug costs to the Soviet Union’s economic system.
“In her speech yesterday, Kamala became 100 percent communist,” he said. “Comrade Kamala announced that she wanted to introduce socialist price controls. You have seen that this has never worked before… It will lead to rationing, hunger and skyrocketing prices.”
The former president challenged voters to ask themselves whether they were “better off with Kamala and Biden than they were under President Donald J. Trump,” a question many Pennsylvania voters might answer in his favor.
But the impact was soon lost, with Trump once again going off-script with rambling speeches about immigration to China and trans people, often based on blatant lies.
At one point he even admitted that this was what he was doing.
“They say he’s rambling. I’m not rambling. I’m a very smart guy, you know, very smart. I don’t ramble. But the other day, every time I hit too hard, they say he’s rambling, rambling,” he said.
The audience, some wearing T-shirts proclaiming “I vote for a convicted felon” and chanting “Fight, fight, fight” in reference to the former president’s words shortly after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt last month, urged Trump to continue.
When he returned to the script, Trump attacked Harris for her past opposition to fracking, an unpopular position in Pennsylvania, which is a major fracker, but he didn’t help himself in the Rust Belt by saying he would cut infrastructure spending such as renewing bridges and roads, which has provided jobs in the region.
Trump also challenged Harris’ legitimacy as the Democratic presidential candidate, describing her as “a coup” against Biden.
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“Joe Biden hates her. This is a reversal of a president,” he said.
Trump confused the audience by saying that if Harris could become a candidate without going through a primary, he should too, because he is very popular among Republicans.
“I asked myself why are we having elections? They didn’t have elections. Why are we having elections?” he said.
Trump described Harris’ decision not to choose Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate as anti-Semitism, in an apparent reference to the debate over whether Shapiro’s support for Israel, including his work for the Israeli embassy in the past, could hurt the Democratic campaign because of the Gaza war.
“They turned him down because he’s Jewish. That’s why they turned him down. Now, we can be politically correct and not say that. I could say, well, they turned him down for a variety of reasons. No, no, they turned him down because he’s Jewish,” Trump said.
“And I’ll tell you this: Any Jewish person who votes for her or a Democrat needs to go out and get their head examined.”
Throughout, Trump has repeatedly returned to personal attacks on Harris, including a bizarre rant about the way she laughs, a mannerism that has proven popular with many young voters in particular.
“Did you hear her laugh? It’s the laugh of a madwoman. It’s the laugh of a madwoman, the laugh of a lunatic,” he said.
