With 27 days to go before Election Day, former President Donald Trump ratcheted up his personal attacks on Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris during a rally in President Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pa., on Wednesday.
Calling her “lyin’ Kamala,” a “radical left lunatic” and leader of the “worst rescue operation in history” in North Carolina following Hurricane Helene, Trump accused Harris of lying about working at McDonald’s and giving federal disaster relief funds to illegal immigrants.
“Everybody get to the polls so we get these horrible politicians out of there,” he said to his supporters waving “47” and “MAGA” signs in the critical battleground state where early voting is already underway.
During a 90-minute speech that touched upon many familiar talking points, Trump said he is “way up in the polls” in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona and repeated a claim he often makes about The New York Times -- which this week released a poll showing him trailing Harris by three points -- that it’s “fake news” and “the enemy of the people.”
The only poll that counts, he said, is November 5th.
“That’s the real poll, right? And they’re gonna cheat like hell,” he said, before repeating his unfounded claim that he won more votes in 2020 than in 2016 and pledging, “we’re not going to let that happen again.”
He expressed disbelief that Harris’ policies, which he described as “high taxes, open borders, allowing murderers to come in,” could win.
Saying Harris “was one of the original sponsors of the socialist green new scam” that is increasing energy prices, Trump pledged to “frack, frack, frack and drill, drill, drill” on day one if reelected and to terminate the Green New Deal immediately. (The Green New Deal, a package of clean energy proposals championed by progressives, was never enacted, and domestic energy production in the U.S. has reached all time highs.)
In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration enacted the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, investing tens of billions of federal dollars in transitioning the country away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources.
“Today I make Pennsylvania this promise: I will stop the energy price hikes, stop plant closures immediately and we will restart the plants that Kamala has very cruelly closed,” Trump said.
Criticizing the Biden-Harris administration for a mandate that would require a majority of new cars sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2032 because “we don’t have any electricity,” Trump said he loves electric cars “because I think Elon is great.”
He praised the Tesla founder for endorsing him and campaigning on his behalf at a rally in Butler, Pa., over the weekend, where he described Musk as having “the greatest time.” If reelected, Trump said he planned to work with Musk to end what he called “a record amount of government waste” and “fraud in this country,” he said without giving specifics.
He also praised his wife Melania for writing a bestselling memoir. Since it was published Oct. 8, her self-titled book, “Melania,” is the No. 1 political leader biography on Amazon and the No. 2 memoir in its Kindle Store.
“I think she treated me well, otherwise I wouldn’t talk about it,” Trump said, before shifting gears to talk about the U.S. being a nation in decline largely because of high inflation and illegal border crossings – issues he blames on Biden and Harris.
“Our country just went through years of really a horror show, and we cannot have four more years,” Trump said. “We just had a man who was grossly incompetent as president and now we have someone who’s even worse, and we can’t allow it to happen.”
After saying Harris would “deliver a 1929-style depression” -- on a day where Wall Street hit record highs -- he pledged to deliver lower taxes, lower regulations, lower energy costs, low inflation and the greatest economy in the history of the world.
Trump also addressed Hurricane Milton, a powerful storm which is set to make landfall in Florida late Wednesday or early Thursday, saying he wants "to send our love to everyone" in his new home state.
"They're going through a big one tonight," Trump said. "It's going to arrive tonight, sometime around midnight, a little before midnight. And we're praying for them and asking God to keep them all safe, all those people. I've never seen a hurricane like that. I don't know. So often, you know, they talk about it and they talk, talk, talk because they want you to watch."
The Harris campaign, in a statement, hammered Trump for taking more than an hour to address the hurricane.
