Trump tries to undermine Harris’ legitimacy as a candidate

For former President Donald Trump, the 2024 race is a contest between him and Vice President Kamala Harris. And President Joe Biden.

During a rally in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, Trump repeatedly blamed Harris and Democrats for Biden dropping out of the race more than a month ago — undermining Harris’ legitimacy as a candidate and highlighting his one-time opponent.

He claimed, without evidence, that the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week is “rigged” because Biden isn’t on the ticket. He said Biden is a worse debater than Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke. And Trump accused the media of being biased in favor of the president.

“What happened to Biden? I was running against Biden and now I’m running against someone else,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Who am I running against, Harris?’ I said, ‘Who the hell is Harris?’”

Trump’s rally, just days before the convention, served to highlight Trump’s ongoing attempt to paint Harris as a “radical left lunatic” who failed to get elected president during the 2020 election cycle but is now on the ticket and riding a wave of enthusiasm from her party.

Since Harris entered the race, she has closed the polling gap with Trump in some surveys and, according to a new New York Times poll out Saturday, has put several key battleground states back into contention, including Arizona, where she leads by about 5 points. Last week, the same survey found Harris leading Trump in Pennsylvania by 4 points.

The reshaped race has left the former president struggling at times to land a consistent line of attack against Harris. He has alternately called her “dumb,” a “socialist lunatic” and on Saturday even said he believed he was better-looking than she is.

“Why is she going to the convention? Because it’s a rigged convention, obviously. She got no votes,” Trump said.

But Trump also specifically criticized Harris’ economic plan, which she rolled out Friday during a rally in North Carolina. Her proposal included offering up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance for "eligible" first-time home buyers, providing $6,000 per child to families for the first year of the child’s life and banning grocery "price-gouging.”

The plan, which was light on details, would help tackle the financial strains facing families, according to Harris. Although inflation has fallen from its peak in June 2022, Americans are still feeling the pinch after prices on necessities exploded over the past three and a half years.

“She says she's going to lower the cost of food and housing starting on Day One,” Trump told the crowd at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza. “But Day One for Kamala was three and a half years ago, so why didn't she do it then? So this is Day 1,305, we're at Day 1,305 so why isn't she doing it now?”

Trump warned that while Harris’ plan might “sound good politically,” he highlighted criticisms of the plan and attacked it as “very dangerous” and “communist.”

Trump offered few details on how he plans to lower prices, but praised the use of tariffs and said he planned to immediately sign an executive order “directing every Cabinet secretary and agency head to use every power we have to drive prices down, but we’re going to drive them down in a capitalist way, not in a communist way.”

Trump’s rally in Wilkes-Barre kicks off a week of counterprogramming the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Each day next week, the campaign is expected to highlight different themes as it holds rallies in battleground states. Both Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, will be returning to Pennsylvania on Monday for events focused on the economy.

With 19 electoral college votes, Pennsylvania is seen as the top prize for both the Trump and the Harris campaigns, and both have invested a significant amount of money into advertising and outreach in the state.

On Sunday, Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will do a bus tour of western Pennsylvania with their spouses, starting in Pittsburgh.

As advisers and allies have called on Trump to tamp down on the personal attacks against Harris and instead focus on criticizing her policies, Trump demonstrated at Saturday’s rally he has no plans to back off. Trump said this week at a press conference at his private Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club he is “entitled to personal attacks.”

“People say don’t use bad language. They say please don’t call people stupid, but they are stupid people. How else do you describe it?” Trump said. “She’s a socialist lunatic. That’s the other thing, please sir, please don’t call her a lunatic, but that’s what she is, she’s a lunatic.”

Trump went on to criticize her laugh and claimed that is why Harris has not done any sit-down interviews since late June.

“Don’t you sort of have an obligation?” he asked. “You're running. This is her form of the basement. … She should at least be talking to the press.”

His mention of the “basement” refers to his repeated knock against Biden, who Trump claimed wasn’t out on the campaign trail enough amid the 2020 pandemic.

In a statement, Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said it was “another rally, same old show.”

“The more Americans hear Trump speak, the clearer the choice this November: Vice President Harris is unifying voters with her positive vision to protect our freedoms, build up the middle class, and move America forward — and Donald Trump is trying to take us backwards,” Costello said.

While in Wilkes-Barre, Trump also stumped for Republican candidates in the state including Dave McCormick, who is running again for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, this time against incumbent Sen. Bob Casey. Trump said he hopes his supporters “give him a chance” and acknowledged that running against someone who has been in office for years is “not easy.”

Trump also brought up Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a finalist to be Harris’ running mate before she tapped Walz, and he claimed without evidence she did not pick him because he is Jewish.

“I don’t think he’s good but they turned him down because he’s Jewish. That’s why they turned him down, and I’ll tell you this, any Jewish person that votes for her or a Democrat needs to go out and have their head examined,” Trump said.

It was the second time Trump has visited Pennsylvania since he survived an assassination attempt in Butler. Trump held a rally in Harrisburg and has said he plans to return to Butler to hold an event to honor Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old father killed at the rally on July 13.

Trump only referred to the assassination attempt in passing as a “horrible situation,” as he mentioned that he recently spoke with Amazon founder and owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos.

"He was so complimentary on the way we handled the horrible situation that took place recently, and I appreciated that,” Trump said.