Trump attempts to focus on economy in North Carolina speech

Former President Trump on Wednesday tried to narrow his focus to the economy during a speech in North Carolina, blasting Vice President Harris over higher prices and Americans’ financial struggles amid pressure to recalibrate his campaign approach.

Trump delivered remarks to supporters in Asheville that he acknowledged were intended to specifically be about the economy. But the speech mostly resembled his typical rally remarks. He attacked Harris over her laugh and her intelligence, and he went on his usual extended riffs about immigration, making baseless claims that some migrants entering the country are “taking the place of our young children.” 

The former president early in his remarks blamed Harris for persistent inflation and the sour economic mood in parts of the country, urging voters to consider how they felt during his four years in office by comparison.

“Does anyone here feel richer under Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe than you were during the Trump administration? Is anything less expensive under Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe?” Trump asked the crowd.

“Are you better off now with Harris and Biden than you were with a person named President Donald J. Trump? Do you know him? He’s a nice gentleman,” he added.

It was a clear attempt by Trump to stay on message as allies have pleaded with him in recent days to avoid personal attacks on Harris and as polls have shown the vice president pulling ahead in key swing states, including North Carolina. 

“We’re doing this as an intellectual speech,” Trump said. “They say it’s the most important subject. I think crime is right there. I think the border is right there, personally.”

Trump sought to tie Harris directly to President Biden’s economic record, which has been hampered by a spike in prices that began in 2022 and has been slow to come down. 

Trump blamed Harris for serving as the tie-breaking vote on major Democratic spending bills, and he called out the vice president for thus far declining to outline a specific economic policy of her own since replacing Biden atop the ticket in late July.

“Inflation is destroying our country. It’s destroying our families,” Trump said. “We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability to insurance cost to supply chain issues.”

Trump’s own economic proposals have included extending his 2017 tax cuts, increasing oil drilling — though U.S. oil production hit record levels in 2023 — and imposing tariffs on all imports, a move some experts have warned could worsen inflation.

Harris has thus far avoided outlining a specific economic policy agenda since she became the Democratic nominee, other than to echo a Trump proposal to eliminate taxes on tipped wages. The vice president is expected to deliver a policy-focused address on how to lower costs during a Friday visit of her own to North Carolina.

The former president showed the limits of his ability to stay completely on message. At one point, he mocked Harris’s laugh as the “laugh of a crazy person.” He later claimed Harris was “not very smart.”

He also suggested his own more focused approach may not last.

“Today we’re going to talk about one subject, then we’ll start going back to the other, because we sort of love that, don’t we?” Trump said.

The former president’s remarks came hours after the Labor Department reported consumer prices rose 0.2 percent in July following two straight months of flat or declining prices. The consumer price index also slowed to a 2.9 percent annual increase in July, down from 3 percent in June, falling below 3 percent for the first time since March 2021.

The latest inflation reading comes as the Federal Reserve gears up for long-awaited interest rate cuts ahead of the upcoming election, and at a moment of economic anxiety as the unemployment rate has started to tick up.

Polling has shown Harris has wiped out Trump’s once-sizable lead in North Carolina over Biden. 

Polling published Wednesday from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report showed Harris leading Trump by 1 percentage point in a head-to-head match-up in North Carolina, a shift from May when Trump led Biden by 7 percentage points.