Former President Donald Trump took the stage to chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!,” then labelled Vice President Kamala Harris a “radical, left lunatic” during a rally Saturday in Wilkes-Barre Township.
“She wants to destroy our country,” Trump said to wild cheers during his fifth rally inside Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza. “If I don’t win, you’ll have a 1929-style depression.”
Speaking to an arena with significantly more empty seats than his past rallies there, Trump ran through a greatest-hits of insults.
He called the Biden-Harris administration “stupid people” and “grossly incompetent.” He referred to Harris’s father as a Marxist and her as "a nation wrecker who is more liberal than crazy (Vermont Sen.) Bernie Sanders." He also ridiculed her laugh.
“Have you heard her laugh? That is the laugh of a crazy person, the laugh of a lunatic,” Trump said. “They prohibited her from laughing. I’ve been waiting for her to laugh because as soon as she laughs the election’s over.”
He referred to a recent Time Magazine cover with a drawing of Harris that he said made her look beautiful like the late actresses Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor. Trump wasn’t buying it.
“I say that I am much better looking than her,” he said.
He also ripped Harris on more conventional topics. He likened her proposal to end corporate food company “price gouging” to price controls that never worked in other countries.
“Have you heard her laugh? That is the laugh of a crazy person, the laugh of a lunatic,” Trump said. “They prohibited her from laughing. I’ve been waiting for her to laugh because as soon as she laughs the election’s over.”
He criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s decision to forgive college student debt and her promises or free and universal health care.
“What they’re doing is a Communist takeover of the country,” he said. “They are a threat to democracy,”
He promised to control inflation – he called it the “Kamala Harris inflation tax” -- and mortgage rates. He said he would “make America affordable again” and restore what he sees as a country in decline.
“If we win, we're going to have the American Dream alive, all for your beautiful children,” he said. “Your grandchildren will have the American dream. (It) will be back with us. Her radical liberal policies, of course, horrific inflation decimated the middle class and gutted the finances of millions of American families.”
Trump said the nation wasn’t at war in Ukraine or Middle East during his presidency because other nations respected the U.S., but don’t now.
“I could stop what's happening in the Middle East with a couple of telephone calls properly played,” he said.
At one point, the former president turned the microphone over to Daniel Campo, a former Venezuela resident whose family fled Communism first from Cuba, then Venezuela. In 2007, they arrived in the U.S.
Campo, a pilot, said his family left because Venezuela began modeling its education system after Cuba’s.
“We are going on a path that is taking us to what Venezuela became, and the only way right now that we can avoid keep going down that path is making Trump president again,” he said.
“U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” the audience chanted again.
Trump promised to close borders, saying Harris was the “border czar” who allowed 20 million illegal immigrants into the country, some of whom raped and killed.
“What's happening to our country is shocking. It's unacceptable. And we are going we have no choice. We're going to do the largest deportation in the history of our country,” he said.
Harris was never “border czar.” President Joe Biden appointed her to lead a panel charged with coming up with solutions to controlling immigration.
Trump also brought up Harris’s decision to choose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
“They turned him down because he’s Jewish,” Trump said.
The crowd booed.
“Any Jewish person that votes for her or a Democrat has to go out and have their head examined,” he said. “There has never been a more dangerous time since the Holocaust. If you happen to be Jewish in America, there's never been anything like it.”
Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, is Jewish.
Trump arrived to speak at a familiar venue but in a political atmosphere far different than just a month ago.
In his 12th visit to northeast or north-central Pennsylvania - and second to the state since a failed assassination attempt, his contest with Harris remains tight statewide and nationwide.
The difference is Trump led most Pennsylvania and national voter polls when President Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee. He trails Harris in many statewide and national polls.
In a Franklin & Marshall College poll of state voters released Thursday, Harris led 46% to 43%. Three other state polls in the last week showed similar results while two released since Thursday showed Trump up by 1 point.
With margins or error factored in, the Pennsylvania race is virtually tied, but Harris is doing better than Biden.
Harris is scheduled to begin a one-day tour of western Pennsylvania on Sunday with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, starting in Pittsburgh. After that, the Harris-Walz campaign will shift to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention.
Trump has a rally scheduled Monday in York.
Speakers at Trump's Wilkes-Barre Township rally included state Treasurer Stacy Garrity; U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Dallas); congressional candidate Rob Bresnahan, who is challenging Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Moosic); and U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick, who is challenging Sen. Bob Casey (D-Scranton).
Trump mistakenly called Bresnahan "Rob Branahan."
Harris camp's pre-emptive strike
In a pre-emptive strike Friday at a carpenters’ union hall in South Scranton, Democratic party leaders ripped Trump’s tenure as president. They said he killed jobs, shipped others overseas, presided over factory closings, made it harder to organize unions and appointed anti-labor people to positions of power.
Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti recalled Trump’s X interview Monday with X owner and Tesla founder Elon Musk.
“And he said to Elon Musk, ‘You're a great cutter,’ meaning you cut jobs well, like good for you Elon, you know how to cut jobs, and you know how to fire people if they try to unionize,” Cognetti said. “That is the exact opposite of what we stand for here in Pennsylvania, especially here in northeastern Pennsylvania, in Scranton, in Wilkes Barre and places that have been built by union labor and continue to be backed by union labor for so many of our families and our households.”
Luzerne County Democratic Party Chairman Thom Shubilla said Trump fell short on promises to reopen factories and steel plants and create more jobs.
“He talked a big game about how he helped places like northeastern Pennsylvania, and people believed him,” Shubilla said. “People wanted to believe that Donald Trump would come in and save their jobs, would create jobs, would turn the economy around. He didn't.”
Local union leader Drew Simpson said Trump “doesn’t give a damn about protecting the rights of workers.”
“We union members tend to be pretty good at sniffing out which politicians are actually looking out for us and those who will sell us out,” said Simpson, the regional manager for the Eastern Atlantic States, Regional Council of Carpenters and (Carpenters) Local 445.
He warned Trump will want to implement the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 agenda. Trump has disavowed the project, but Democrats don’t believe him.
Project 2025 seeks decertification of unions, more classification of workers as independent contractors to limit non-pay benefits and making it harder for workers to claim overtime, Simpson said.
“Project (20)25 isn't just a wish list, it's a checklist that will be used if Donald Trump gets back into office,” he said.
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