A version of this conversation aired during Morning Edition on WVIA.
SARAH: Former President Donald Trump returned to Luzerne County over the weekend. He's no stranger to the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre Twp. — the venue has seen him during multiple campaign efforts since 2016.
WVIA News was there. Here to catch up, we have Borys Krawczeniuk and Isabela Weiss. Welcome to Morning Edition.
BORYS: Good morning.
ISABELA: Yeah, glad to be here.
SARAH: So Isabela, my first question is going to be for you, since this was your first Trump rally here in Northeastern Pennsylvania. What was that experience like for you, and how does it compare to other political events that you've covered in your career?
ISABELA: I think for me, I mean also as a young voter myself, coming in and seeing a Trump rally is amazing. The amount of passion that people have for the former president — you have people with big signs, you know, asking for Trump to come back, to be the 47th president. People are ecstatic to be there. You have people crying. I mean, I interviewed a woman who was crying when sharing with me how much Trump means to her.
SARAH: And Borys, you've been to your fair share of these particular rallies since 2016 I'm sure. What are some of the changes that you've noticed? Has there been a tonal shift now that he is, first of all, facing Kamala Harris versus Joe Biden?
BORYS: No, not at all. He still stays personal, and he did a lot on Saturday — attacking the way she (Harris) laughs and questioning how attractive she is. The only thing that's really changed is that I don't think he would have called Biden a communist or a socialist or a Marxist, and he seems to be ready to make that a theme of his campaign against her.
SARAH: Now, was there anything that came up on Saturday that you think was specifically chosen to be spoken about in Northeastern Pennsylvania, something tailored to this audience?
BORYS: The fracking question.
ISABELA: Yeah, he went on a lot about fracking. He constantly was saying, you know, frack, baby frack. He referenced several times about how Kamala Harris has said that she would ban fracking in the past, although she did reverse her position pretty recently, after Trump spoke about fracking at a rally in Harrisburg a few weeks back.
BORYS: He did this with coal back in 2016. He talked about reviving coal, the coal industry in Pennsylvania, not realizing that it's pretty much dead in the water, except for a few places, and it's not coming back. In this instance, fracking is relevant to Southwestern Pennsylvania and a few counties in northern Pennsylvania, but not really in Lackawanna and Luzerne County. But he's aware he's talking to a larger audience.
SARAH: Let's talk about the crowd. Borys, you mentioned that the crowd size did not come up during the speech, but we are a couple of days after and former President Donald Trump has been saying that 11,000 people or more were turned away at the door. Is that the case? Does that jive with what you saw on Saturday?
ISABELA: I did not see that whatsoever. While Trump was speaking, we had several people get up and actually leave during his speech, we took several videos of people being moved to actually fill in seats.
BORYS: It never filled in entirely, which would raise doubts about whether or not there were that many people turned away outside. Earlier in the afternoon... it was a lot emptier than it was like as the speech approached. It was about half full as of about 2 (p.m.) when they closed the doors for a while and then they started letting more people in.
SARAH: Now, we should say that crowd size does not necessarily translate to votes, but it has been an important thing for Donald Trump as a candidate.
BORYS: And as a president like you know, it's started with the day he was inaugurated, saying that he had more people at his inauguration than Obama did at his first inauguration.
SARAH: Prior to Trump arriving in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday, there was a new poll that came out showing him falling behind Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania. Do you think Saturday was enough to close the gap?
BORYS: Oh, yeah. No. One event's not going to close the gap. There's going to... she's got the convention coming up this week, that usually produces a little bit of a bump, and then sometime in mid-September, we'll get to see ... what people really think. She's still in a honeymoon phase. They're trying to do their best from the Republican side attacking her right now, and we haven't seen that translate yet. Most of the polling is going in her favor, heavily in her favor right now, but ...we're still just under 80 days to go.
SARAH: Why do you think that Northeastern Pennsylvania, Wilkes-Barre in particular, has become so important to the Trump campaign that they keep coming back?
BORYS: It's always been a swing area. So you, even though you had a majority of Democrats at one time, it was two to one Democrat, two and a half to one Democratic in Lackawanna County and three to two Democratic in Luzerne County. So even back 20 years ago, we got a lot of attention because ... a lot of these Democrats were conservative Democrats, so they would switch sides and vote for Republicans now and then, but until Trump came along, you didn't see the trend that you're seeing now. In Luzerne County, the registration is almost even now between Democrats and Republicans. In Lackawanna County, it's down to seven Democrats for every four Republicans. A significant decline in the number of Democrats to Republicans over time, and that's why you're going to keep seeing a lot of visits. The spokesman for this Trump campaign in Pennsylvania told me he expects them to be back, and I'm sure that's true of Harris' campaign as well, mainly because Donald Trump can win the election outright by winning Pennsylvania, and Kamala Harris can't win it without winning Pennsylvania.
SARAH: The countdown is basically on for when Kamala Harris shows up in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Do we think that when she shows up, will it appear as though it's a response to Donald Trump's appearance, or she's coming here because she has value here?
ISABELA: I think it will be a response. I mean, after seeing how she pivoted from her original position on fracking, just from what Trump said in Harrisburg a few weeks ago, I think she's ... trying to see what she can get now from undecided voters or independents. I think at this point, she is mostly reacting to what he has done.
BORYS: She'll be here because she needs to be here, not necessarily because Trump came here Saturday and he'll be back. They know that this is going to get right down to the wire. So, you know, she knows she has to be here. I don't know if it'll be in Wilkes-Barre. Could be Lackawanna County, you know, maybe she comes with Biden. Could be Monroe County, which is a very fast growing county.
SARAH: Isabela, a bulk of your coverage on the day of was before the rally, but you did catch up with a few people after the rally for their reactions to the speech. What did you find people took away?
ISABELA: A lot of people that I spoke to found that he was very good at connecting voters. He was more personable than, let's say a Kamala Harris or especially a Joe Biden. I spoke to a few young voters, several of which actually will be voting for the first time in this election. One of the young voters I interviewed, it will be his first time voting. And he is a local business owner in New York, and he traveled all this way to see Trump speak in Pennsylvania because he wanted to show support for a, in his mind, the future president, but b that he believes that as president, Trump will bring jobs back to average Americans. He spoke ad nauseam about that.
ISABELA: There was another young voter who was very glad to hear he lives in Coney Island, and at one point Trump mentioned a very brutal raping of a woman in Coney Island. He was very happy that Trump was referring back to the area that he lives, and he felt that Trump was connecting to the issues that he sees in his own community.
SARAH: Now let's talk about the rally itself and the speech. Trump spoke for nearly one hour and 45 minutes. Were there any points that stuck out to the both of you as something that might resonate with voters here, or possibly something that could and should be disputed over the next few days?
ISABELA: The loudest cheer from the crowd was towards the end of his speech. He brought up the Olympics, and specifically all of the misconceptions that are being put out about two women who competed in the Olympics. He was saying that they were transgender, and that received the largest cheer from the crowd. So it obviously is very important to voters in this area - to Trump voters, I should specify.
BORYS: The thing that stuck out for me was that he has the economy on his side. The polling shows that people trust him more with the economy. There's a lot of problems people are still having with inflation and a whole bunch of stuff... and he he mentioned some of that during the thing, but he spent so much time calling her a communist, calling her a fascist, questioning whether she's better looking than he is, and making fun of her laugh. He doesn't need to do that, and yet he keeps doing it. You know, I think he said in an interview last week with reporters, he said, I have to do it my way. I think he would do better if you just concentrate on the things that voters were concerned about. I know his advisers are trying to get him to do that, but Saturday was not that.
SARAH: Borys, Isabela, thank you very much, and thanks for your work on Saturday.
