With weeks until election, Harris and Trump sling criticisms at one another

Oct. 6 (UPI) -- With just several weeks until Election Day, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump scrambled along the campaign trail on Sunday, with the former president holding a rally in Wisconsin and the sitting vice president attacking her opponent on a podcast.

Trump gave a rambling and, at times, incoherent speech laced with misleading and inaccurate claims to a crowd assembled Sunday at the Dodge County Airport in the battleground state, which the former president has visited four times in less than two weeks.

He attempted to project an image of confidence while issuing warnings about the future of the country if he were to lose the election.

"This country is in big trouble," he said. "We're a failing nation. We are a failing nation. We're a nation in decline. We're a nation in distress and we're going to get it fixed very quickly."

He also used migrants to attack the incumbent Biden administration, warning that a Harris presidency would "inundate your towns with illegal alien criminals."

"And by the way, every town and every little city -- and every big city, frankly -- are petrified. Even if they haven't arrived yet, they will be," he said.

For her part, Harris appeared on an episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, which was released Sunday. In it, she criticized Trump for portraying himself as a protector of women and reminded voters that Trump was largely responsible for overturning Roe Vs. Wade during his term, appointing three ultra conservative, anti-abortion judges to the U.S. Supreme Court .

"They did just as he intended and now there are 20 states with Trump abortion bans, including bans that make no exception for rape or incest," she told host Alex Cooper on the podcast.

Call Her Daddy is among the most popular podcasts on streaming platforms. Her appearance on the show kicks of what is scheduled to be a busy week of media campaigning for Harris, who has largely avoided interviews with serious journalism organizations, and will continue to do so, planning to appear on shows hosted by Howard Stern , Steven Colbert and the hosts of the left-leaning program The View .

Harris is also scheduled to appear on CBS's 60 Minutes program alone after Trump declined an invitation to participate in the same episode of the program. It is to air Monday.

On Saturday, Trump returned to the site where he escaped assassination earlier this year in Butler, Pa., accompanied by tech billionaire Elon Musk , who encouraged people to register to vote.

"Exactly 12 weeks ago this evening, on this very ground, a cold-blooded assassin aimed to silence me and to silence the greatest movement," Trump told the crowd from behind bullet proof glass

Following speeches by his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, his son Eric Trump, RNC co-chairwoman and daughter-in-law Lara Trump, the former president told the partisan crowd Saturday in Butler, Pa., that Americans deserve a president who isn't beholden to special interests while taking his typical personal pot shots at his rival.

He also blamed President Joe Biden and Harris for the shooting in Butler, as well as another presumed association attempt at his golf course in Florida last.

"Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at," Trump alleged.

Both shooters had been either registered Republicans or were involved in supporting Trump and some of his unsubstantiated rhetoric at one point in time.

Polls show that the race has tightened substantially and is likely to come down to several crucial battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that could ultimately decide the election.