Ex-president quickly broke away from prepared speech to accuse vice-president of being a communist and a fascist
Donald Trump tried to reset his campaign at a rally in battleground Pennsylvania on Saturday as polls show Kamala Harris pulling ahead in key swing states.
But the former president quickly broke away from the prepared speech about economic issues to launch personal attacks on Harris including accusations that her agenda is both communist and fascist, and that she has “the laugh of a crazy person”.
Trump’s written speech before a mostly filled 8,000-seat indoor arena in Wilkes-Barre focussed on economic policy. Some Republican strategists had hoped the former president could regain the initiative by zeroing in on issues on which opinion polls say voters have greater trust in Trump than the Democrats, such as inflation.
Trump attacked Harris as part of the Biden administration for the surge in prices that has hit many Americans hard and described increased household costs as “the Kamala Harris inflation tax”.
“She was there for everything,” he said in attempting to pin Biden’s policies on her.
Trump also likened Harris’s pledge on Friday to tackle high grocery costs by targeting profiteering by food corporations, and to bring down housing and prescription drug costs, to the Soviet Union’s economic system.
“In her speech yesterday, Kamala went full communist,” he said. “Comrade Kamala announced that she wants to institute socialist price controls.