‘Full communist’: Donald Trump blasts Kamala Harris over price controls
Donald Trump has ripped into Vice President Kamala Harris over her plan to crack down on price gouging as the Secret Service is embroiled in another scandal.
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Donald Trump has blasted Vice President Kamala Harris’ plan to slap socialist price controls on groceries, saying she’s gone “full communist.”
The former US president branded his rival “Comrade Kamala” over her plan to crack down on price gouging, comparing her proposal to failed communist plans pushed in Venezuela and the former Soviet Union.
“In her speech yesterday, Kamala went full communist …” Mr Trump told supporters at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.
“She wants to destroy our country. After causing catastrophic inflation, Comrade Kamala announced that she wants to institute socialist price controls,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Trump’s appearance was his seventh this year in the key battleground state where recent polls show a stalemate between him and Ms Harris.
Ms Harris revealed her plans to combat surging food prices at a rally in North Carolina during her first 100 days as president if elected, which included a federal ban on price gouging that would slap hefty penalties on companies that set high prices.
“What they are doing is a communist takeover of our country,” Mr Trump said of Ms Harris’ proposal.
“Her plan is very dangerous because it may sound good politically … This is communist; this is Marxist; this is fascist.”
During his speech, Mr Trump declared there has “never been a more dangerous time since the Holocaust” to be Jewish in the US.
Mr Trump Ms Harris decided against choosing Pennyslvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate because he is Jewish.
“They turned him down because he’s Jewish,” Mr Trump said.
“They turned him down for other reasons, but the primary reason is because he’s Jewish,” he said, adding that “any Jewish person that votes for (Harris) or a Democrat has to go out and have their head examined.”
It came as the Secret Service investigated allegations a female agent left her post at a campaign event for Mr Trump last week to breastfeed her child.
The claim was first made by a RealClearPolitics correspondent in a lengthy X post shortly after the Trump campaign event in Asheville, North Carolina.
“All employees of the US Secret Service are held to the highest standards. While there was no impact to the North Carolina event, the specifics of this incident are being examined. Given this is a personnel matter, we are not in a position to comment further,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The New York Post.
“The site agent went to do one final sweep of the walking route and found the agent breastfeeding her child in a room that is supposed to be set aside for important Secret Service official work, i.e. a potential emergency related to the president,” Susan Crabtree wrote in her original post.
“A working agent on duty cannot bring a child to a protective assignment. The woman was out of the Atlanta Field Office,” she said, citing three people “in the Secret Service community” as the source of the claim.
The agency is already under fire for security lapses which lead to a near-fatal assassination attempt against Mr Trump last month in Butler, Pennsylvania.
HARRIS CLOSES IN ON TRUMP IN TIGHT RACE
Meanwhile, Ms Harris closed in on Mr Trump in several battleground swing states as the election draws closer.
New polling from The New York Times and Siena College show Ms Harris is leading Mr Trump in the Sun Belt state of Arizona, 50 per cent to 45 per cent, and has moved ahead of him in North Carolina — a state he won four years ago — while narrowing his lead in Georgia and Nevada.
Mr Trump is ahead in Georgia 50 per cent to 46 per cent, and, in Nevada, he has 48 per cent compared to 47 per cent for Ms Harris.
She has 49 per cent of likely voters to Mr Trump’s 47 per cent in North Carolina.
Mr Trump and Ms Harris are tied at 48 per cent across an average of the four Sun Belt states after polling was conducted between August 8 and 15.
New York Times/Siena polling showed Ms Harris was also in front of Mr Trump by a narrow margin in battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin last week.
Either candidate needs to win at least one of the Sun Belt states alongside three Rust Belt states — Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — to secure the presidency.
It comes as Mr Trump will hold a rally in Pennsylvania, followed closely by Ms Harris taking a bus tour through the crucial battleground state ahead of her big moment at the Democratic National Convention.
Mr Trump’s rally in the small town of Wilkes-Barre on Saturday local time will give him a chance to take the spotlight off the vice president, who has enjoyed a whirlwind entry into the race since her boss President Joe Biden abruptly pulled out on July 21.
Mr Trump will highlight his dark vision of a failing America, which he blames in increasingly drastic terms on Ms Harris.
“Hard-working Americans are suffering because of the Harris-Biden administration’s dangerously liberal policies,” his campaign said ahead of the rally.
“Prices are excruciatingly high, cost of living has soared, crime has skyrocketed, and illegal immigrants are pouring into our country,” it said, although a recent crackdown on the Mexico border has stemmed much of the flow of undocumented workers and asylum seekers.
The campaign also insisted that “in Kamala Harris’s America, crime runs rampant” -- even if statistics show that violent crime has dropped sharply.
Mr Trump will take the same message to another small Pennsylvania town, York, on Monday.
Mr Trump has also found a new secret weapon in his campaign by enlisting the help of former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard before his first debate against Ms Harris.
Gabbard, 43, took part in a recent strategy session with the former president, 78, at his Mar-Lago estate ahead of his September debate, according to the New York Times.
Gabbard, who at one point was on Mr Trump’s lengthy running mate shortlist, has experience debating Ms Harris when she was a Democratic presidential primary candidate in 2019, and she attacked her in an interview that went viral.
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TRUMP V HARRIS: POLLS CLOSE BEFORE DNC
With polls showing the head-to-head race against Ms Harris very close, it’s the swing states -- especially Pennsylvania -- that will decide the final result in the US electoral college system. Mr Trump lost the state by a narrow margin against Mr Biden in 2020 but has strong support in the rural areas and small towns.
Ms Harris will be close on Mr Trump’s heels over the weekend before heading to the Democratic convention.
The celebratory bash in Chicago will feature three days of speeches from party leaders, including Mr Biden and former president Barack Obama, before her own speech Thursday to accept the nomination.
But first, Ms Harris and running mate Tim Walz, the down-to-earth governor of Minnesota, will be joined by their spouses on a bus tour around western Pennsylvania on Sunday, the campaign said.
Their route will start in the Democratic urban stronghold of Pittsburgh before threading through the “critical battlegrounds” of Allegheny and Beaver counties, the campaign said.
The goal will be to expand on Mr Biden’s 2020 success, the campaign said, by seeking to drive up turnout in Democratic Allegheny “while simultaneously making inroads in historically conservative counties like Beaver.” The Ms Harris campaign touted its sophisticated ground game, noting it has 36 field offices in Pennsylvania and “the Trump campaign still has little to no public presence.”
HARRIS UNVEILS ECONOMIC PLAN
Kamala Harris delivered her first major policy speech since becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee for the 2024 presidential election.
In an effort to distance herself from President Joe Biden and the “Bidenomics” of the past four years, Ms Harris acknowledged that inflation was still too high despite economic growth in recent years.
Her economic agenda was unveiled in North Carolina, a key swing state where Donald Trump revealed his economic plan two days earlier.
She focused on how she planned to fight big corporations and bring down the costs of food, housing and raising children.
“We know that many Americans don’t yet feel that progress in their daily lives. Costs are still too high and, on a deeper level, for too many people, no matter how much they work, it feels so hard to just be able to get ahead,” she said.
“As president, I will be laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability and dignity.”
Promising to champion an “opportunity economy,” she said “building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.”
And in an effort to connect with voters angry at Mr Biden, the vice president recounted her modest background, noting that she’d worked in a McDonald’s during university studies.
TRUMP RESPONDS TO HARRIS’ SPEECH
Donald Trump has slammed Ms Harris’ policies after she unveiled them during her speech in North Carolina.
“Kamala Harris wants to raise your taxes and make you pay for free healthcare and free housing in luxury hotels for her millions of illegal aliens,”Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Meanwhile, our Veterans are sleeping on the streets and Kamala’s running mate, Weirdo Tim Walz, voted against my VA Mission Act that made healthcare more affordable and accessible for our Nation’s Heroes! Kamala and Walz will put criminals, terrorists, and illegal aliens FIRST.
“ I will always put law-abiding, hardworking, patriotic AMERICANS First!”
HARRIS VOWS TO LOWER HOUSING COSTS
Ms Harris also vowed to lower housing costs by expanding the housing supply.
Here’s the moment where she announced it, in her now-concluded speech in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Kamala Harris: "By the end of my first term, we will end America's housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals that are affordable for the middle class." pic.twitter.com/33xhITfncB
— The Recount (@therecount) August 16, 2024
HARRIS HITS TRUMP ON TAX PROPOSAL
As Ms Harris concluded her speech, she introduced a proposal to reinstate a tax credit that had significantly reduced child poverty during its single year of implementation, with plans to expand it further.
She acknowledged that while “by any measure, our economy is the strongest in the world..., many Americans don’t yet feel that progress in their daily lives.”
Taking a leaf from Trump’s populist playbook, she threw out the idea of hefty tax breaks for families with children, help in accessing government-subsidised health care, and support for first-time homebuyers.
The expanded child tax credit reduced child poverty by roughly half in 2021, but it expired the next year when talks to renew it failed.
Ms Harris told voters that she would bring back the credit, and make it even more generous.
“As President, I’ll not only restore that tax cut, but expand it. We will provide USD$6,000 in tax relief to families during the first year of a child’s life,” she said.
“Now, think what that means. Think what that means. That is a vital, vital year of critical development of a child, and the cost can really add up, especially for young parents who need to buy diapers and clothes and a car seat and so much else.
She contended that she could cut the federal budget deficit by implementing this plan, although she didn’t specify how. Instead, she criticised Donald Trump for his tax reduction policies.
“And we will do this while reducing the deficit. Compare my plan with what Donald Trump intends to do, he plans to give billionaires massive tax cuts year after year, and he plans to cut corporate taxes by over a trillion dollars, even as they pull in record profits,” Ms Harris said.
“And that’s on top of the $2tn tax cut he already signed into law when he was president, which, by the way, overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest Americans and corporations and exploded the national deficit.
“You know, I think that if you want to know who someone cares about, look who they fight for.
BIDEN-HARRIS HOLD FIRST JOINT RALLY
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris made an upbeat show of unity as they held their first joint public event since Harris replaced the president as the Democratic candidate in November’s election.
Chants of “thank you Joe!” rang out from the audience at a community college in Maryland, near Washington.
Mr Biden was celebrated as he took credit for a major deal to reduce medicine prices for retirees on social welfare programs.
But the biggest star was Mr Biden’s vice president who has united the Democratic Party and surged ahead in the polls against Republican Donald Trump since her abrupt entry into the race.
“She can make one hell of a president,” Mr Biden said of Ms Harris.
The joint appearance came a couple hours before Mr Trump was due to hold a press conference at his golf club in New Jersey.
The real estate billionaire and scandal-engulfed former president has struggled to pivot his campaign since Mr Biden dropped out on July 21, amid Democratic concerns that he lacked the stamina at 81 to do the job.
Until then, Mr Trump was rising steadily in the polls, in large part on his message that Mr Biden was losing his mental acuity – a charge which gained currency when the president badly flubbed a televised presidential debate.
Now it’s Ms Harris, 59, who has the growing momentum against 78-year-old Mr Trump.
And Mr Biden, in the lame duck end of his four-year term, appears re-energised, embracing the role of mentor handing off to his protege.
In his speech, Mr Biden said the Democrats’ plan was to “beat the hell out of” Republican opponents and he prompted laughter on pretending not to know Mr Trump’s name – “Donald Dump or Donald whatever.”
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