Donald Trump Lays Out His Economic Plan At North Carolina Rally

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Donald Trump is seeking Wednesday to recalibrate his presidential comeback bid, this time with a rally and speech in North Carolina that his campaign billed as a significant economic address.

Trump is speaking at Harrah’s Cherokee Center, an auditorium in downtown Asheville, with his podium flanked by more than a dozen American flags and custom backdrops that read: “No tax on Social Security” and “No tax on tips.”

Republicans are looking for Trump to focus more than in the scattershot arguments and attacks he has made on Vice President Kamala Harris since Democrats elevated her as their presidential nominee. Twice in the past week, Trump has fumbled such opportunities, first in an hourlong news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, then in a 2 1/2-hour conversation on the social media platform X with CEO Elon Musk.

The latest attempt comes in the state that delivered Trump his closest statewide margin of victory four years ago and that is once again expected to be a battleground in 2024. The question for the campaign is whether Trump can stick to a tight frame on the economy, especially to saddle Harris with the fallout of inflation, rather than default to his usual stemwinding and grievances.

The speech comes the same day that the Labor Department reported that year-over-year inflation reached its lowest level in more than three years in July, a potential boon for Harris. Harris plans to be in North Carolina on Friday to release more details of her promise to make “building up the middle class… a defining goal of my presidency.”

A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that Americans are more likely to trust Trump over Harris when it comes to