(AFP) – Kamala Harris blasted Donald Trump as the “biggest loser” on the economy and a friend of billionaires Wednesday as the election rivals laid out competing plans on the top issue for many US voters. The Democrat portrayed herself as a supporter of middle-class Americans struggling with high prices in her speech in Pittsburgh, accusing Trump in contrast of supporting people who “own the big skyscrapers.”
Republican Trump for his part doubled down on his protectionist vision — but spent as much time on threatening to blow Iran to “smithereens” after US intelligence warned of threats from Tehran against his life. The vice president and the former president are neck-and-neck in the polls and are both reaching out to undecided voters on key issues like the economy with less than six weeks until election day.
Harris vowed to “chart a new way forward” in a speech in Pittsburgh, an industrial city in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania. “For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers. Not those who actually build them. Not those who wire them. Not those who mop the floors,” she said.
Harris focused on boosting investment for American manufacturing as it competes with countries like China, as well as repeating earlier promises of tax breaks for families and small businesses. She said nearly 200,000 factory jobs moved abroad during Trump’s time in the White House, “making Trump one of the biggest losers ever on manufacturing.”
Since replacing US President Joe Biden as candidate in July, polls have shown that Harris is gaining on Trump in terms of whom voters trust most on the economy — but that voters remain unfamiliar with her policies. Harris was due to give her first major solo television interview as nominee later Wednesday when she sits down with the left-leaning news channel MSNBC.
Trump’s campaign said her speech was “full of lies” and that she had already had three and a half years as part of the Biden administration to tackle problems like low prices. The Republican is making similar pledges to boost American manufacturing, but based largely on his plans to impose sweeping tariffs on foreign imports. “You’re going to have protection from them coming in, because we’re going to put on from 50 to 200 percent tariffs,” Trump told supporters in Mint Hill, North Carolina — another crucial battleground state.
But the ex-commander-in-chief spent a good part of his speech talking about the threats to his life — from the two assassination attempts he has escaped in the space of two months to threats by Iran. “If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens,” Trump said.
He also accused the FBI of being “all talk,” saying the law enforcement bureau was failing to properly investigate attempts to kill him “while they focus on the sitting president’s political opponents.” Trump faces numerous criminal investigations for election interference — and was convicted in May of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump meanwhile plans to return to the Pennsylvania town of Butler where a gunman made an attempt on his life at a rally in July, his campaign said Wednesday. He will hold a rally on October 5 in Butler “on the very same ground where he came within a quarter of an inch of losing his life,” it said. A gunman accused of planning to kill Trump at his Florida golf course just over a week ago, Ryan Routh, was indicted Tuesday for the attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate.
– Jim Watson with Danny Kemp in Washington
© 2024 AFP
