Trump Zigzags Between Economic Remarks And Personal Insults At Rally In Critical Pennsylvania

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday again sought to deliver a campaign message focused on the economy, but the Republican repeatedly swerved into non-sequiturs and personal attacks, including twice declaring that he was better looking than Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump wound back and forth between hitting his points on economic policy and delivering a smattering of insults and impressions of President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron as he held a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania.

As he attacked Democrats for inflation, he asked his crowd of supporters, “You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter for a second, do you? Joe Biden hates her.”

Trump’s rally was in a swath of the pivotal battleground state where he hopes conservative, white working-class voters near Biden’s hometown will boost the Republican’s chances of winning back the White House.

His remarks Saturday came as Democrats prepare for their four-day national convention that kicks off Monday in Chicago and will mark the party’s welcoming of Harris as their nominee. Her replacement of Biden with less than four months before the November election reinvigorated Democrats and their coalition, and has presented a new challenge for Trump.

Trump laced in attacks on Harris’ laugh and said she was “not a very good wordsmith” and mocked the names of the CNN anchors who moderated the debate he had with Biden in June.

He also hammered Harris on the economy, associating her with the Biden administration’s inflation woes and likening her latest proposal against price gouging to measures in communist nations. Trump has said a federal ban on price gouging for groceries would lead to food shortages, rationing and hunger and on