Urged to
Focus on the Economy, Trump Leans Into Attacks of Harris
At a rally
in Pennsylvania, former President Donald J. Trump vacillated between criticisms
of the economy and immigration and personal attacks on Vice President Kamala
Harris.
Simon J.
Levien Michael Gold
By Simon J.
Levien and Michael Gold
Simon J.
Levien reported from Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Michael Gold reported from New York.
Aug. 17,
2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/17/us/politics/trump-harris-pennsylvania.html
Former
President Donald J. Trump in a campaign speech on Saturday bounced among
complaints about the economy and immigration, wide-ranging digressions and a
number of personal attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris, including jabs at
her appearance and her laugh.
At a rally
in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Mr. Trump swung from talking points on inflation and
criticisms of Democratic policy as “fascist” and “Marxist” to calling illegal
immigrants “savage monsters” and saying that rising sea levels would create
more beachfront property.
Mr. Trump
blamed Ms. Harris for high prices, in what was effectively an inversion of her
remarks at her rally in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, where she said Mr. Trump’s
proposed import tariffs would amount to a “Trump tax” on groceries. The former
president argued that she had placed a “Kamala Harris inflation tax” on average
Americans over the course of her term as vice president and that, if elected,
he would lower prices on consumer goods, just as she has said she would do.
“Yesterday,
she got up, she started ranting and raving,” Mr. Trump said of Ms. Harris’s
explanation of her economic agenda in North Carolina. He mocked her remarks
that, he said, suggested he would tax “every single thing that was ever
invented.”
Mr. Trump’s
advisers have urged him to emphasize his economic policy plans, which,
according to polling, many voters trust more than Ms. Harris’s, and some
Republicans have hoped he would leave behind his characteristic personal
attacks, including his frequent insults of Ms. Harris’s intelligence and
appearance.
But at two
events earlier this week — a speech in Asheville, N.C., and a news conference
in Bedminster, N.J. — both billed as opportunities to discuss the economy, Mr.
Trump veered into personal attacks against Ms. Harris, which he said he was
“entitled” to do.
Mr. Trump
opened his rally in Pennsylvania, his final one before the Democratic National
Convention begins in Chicago on Monday, by addressing inflation and the
economy. But he quickly said, “You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter for a
second, do you?” adding of Ms. Harris, “Joe Biden hates her.”
He went on
to attack Ms. Harris for having a “crazy” laugh and said that he was “much
better looking than her,” a line that drew cheers from the thousands of
rallygoers gathered in the Mohegan Sun Arena.
In a
statement, a Harris campaign spokesman, Joseph Costello, said that Mr. Trump
was trying to distract from his “dangerous” agenda by resorting “to lies,
name-calling and confused rants.”
Mr. Trump
also said that Democrats would be hosting a “rigged convention” next week
because of Ms. Harris’s entry into the race after a primary season in which
millions of voters cast their votes for President Biden. Mr. Biden dropped out
of the race in July and endorsed the vice president, who moved quickly to unite
delegates behind her.
Mr. Trump
repeated his campaign promise to increase oil and gas production, and then
attacked Ms. Harris for calling for a ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking,
during her 2020 presidential campaign.
Ms. Harris’s
campaign has said that she no longer supports such a ban. Pennsylvania, a large
producer of natural gas, could see an economic benefit from increased fracking
even as the process risks air and water pollution. And Mr. Trump’s calls to
“drill, baby, drill” were particularly salient in Wilkes-Barre, in a region of
northeast Pennsylvania that was historically defined by anthracite coal mining.
Mr. Trump
also continued his effort to try to peel off American Jews, a substantial
majority of whom are liberal, from the Democratic Party. He claimed that
Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, was not chosen as Ms.
Harris’s running mate because of his religion.
“They turned
him down because he’s Jewish,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “I don’t think he’s a
good person.”
As Ms.
Harris was choosing her running mate, Mr. Shapiro faced a pressure campaign
from activists who considered him too sympathetic to Israel. Mr. Shapiro has
rejected the idea that his religious identity played into Ms. Harris’s
decision.
Still, Mr.
Trump, who during his presidency was accused of emboldening white supremacists,
invoked the Holocaust as he warned of broad antisemitism in America and
insisted, as he has before, that Jews who vote for Democrats “should have their
head examined.”
Both Mr.
Trump and Ms. Harris are particularly focused on Pennsylvania, a swing state
with the potential to decide the election. Mr. Trump won the state by a slim
margin in 2016, but he lost it to Mr. Biden in 2020.
Both
campaigns are holding events in the state in the coming days. On Sunday, Ms.
Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, will embark on a bus
tour of western Pennsylvania. On Monday, Mr. Trump and his running mate,
Senator JD Vance of Ohio, will make separate campaign stops in York, Pa., and
Philadelphia.
Simon J.
Levien is a Times political reporter covering the 2024 elections and a member
of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their
careers. More about Simon J. Levien
Michael Gold
is a political correspondent for The Times covering the campaigns of Donald J.
Trump and other candidates in the 2024 presidential elections. More about
Michael Gold
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