Donald Trump returned to the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Saturday for a rally, just two days before the Democratic National Convention at which his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, is expected to accept the Democratic presidential nomination.
In his usual rhetoric and bigotry – from accusing Harris of being a communist to calling her a liar (“she just stands up and lies”) to claiming she is “flooding our country with millions and millions of low-wage immigrants,” most of whom he baselessly claims are prisoners, mental hospital patients and terrorists – Trump also complained that he had to spend money to run against Biden, but now his strategy has been disrupted by a new candidate.
“I spent $100 million,” he said of the amount he spent on his first candidacy against President Joe Biden. “Now I have to run against someone else. Is that fair? I think they should give me back the $100 million. Who wants to take the money?”
In the days after Biden dropped out of the race and Harris became the presumptive nominee, Trump struggled to combat his new opponent, mostly attacking Biden. During Saturday’s rally, while he still called Biden “deceitful,” he also said on the teleprompter that Biden “hates Harris. This was the downfall of a president,” he claimed.
In his attacks on Harris, he said he played a video that contained clips from her last presidential campaign.
He criticized her laughter. “Did you hear her laugh? That’s the laughter of a madman… It’s the laughter of a lunatic. Did you hear her?” he said, then claimed: “You know, they forbade her. They forbade her because she was laughing. I was waiting for the laughter because as soon as she laughs, the election is over.”
Trump also took exception to Harris’ appearance. He addressed her cover with Time Magazineand pointed out that it was a drawing. He said he thought the depiction was Sophia Loren and someone else told him Harris had the advantage of being a “very beautiful woman,” which earned him boos and jeers from the audience. So he looked at the story again and came to the wild conclusion: “I say I’m much better looking than her… I’m a better looking person than Kamala.”
In addition to his direct attacks on Harris, he also claimed that the “country would die” if he was not re-elected.
It was his seventh visit to the swing state this year and his second to Pennsylvania since he was shot and injured in Butler. A poll released yesterday by Emerson College/RealClearPennsylvania puts him ahead among Pennsylvania voters by a narrow one-percentage point, while a poll from a week ago The New York Times and Siena noted that he was four percentage points behind Harris among voters in Pennsylvania (polls in Republican states are also a concern for the Republican Party). Trump and Harris will face off in that state in their first debate on September 10 in Philadelphia.
