Urged to Focus on the Economy, Trump Leans Into Attacks of Harris

Former President Donald J. Trump in a campaign speech on Saturday bounced among complaints about the economy and immigration, wide-ranging digressions and a number of personal attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris, including jabs at her appearance and her laugh.

At a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Mr. Trump swung from talking points on inflation and criticisms of Democratic policy as “fascist” and “Marxist” to calling illegal immigrants “savage monsters” and saying that rising sea levels would create more beachfront property.

Mr. Trump blamed Ms. Harris for high prices, in what was effectively an inversion of her remarks at her rally in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, where she said Mr. Trump’s proposed import tariffs would amount to a “Trump tax” on groceries. The former president argued that she had placed a “Kamala Harris inflation tax” on average Americans over the course of her term as vice president and that, if elected, he would lower prices on consumer goods, just as she has said she would do.

“Yesterday, she got up, she started ranting and raving,” Mr. Trump said of Ms. Harris’s explanation of her economic agenda in North Carolina. He mocked her remarks that, he said, suggested he would tax “every single thing that was ever invented.”

Mr. Trump’s advisers have urged him to emphasize his economic policy plans, which, according to polling, many voters trust more than Ms. Harris’s, and some Republicans have hoped he would leave behind his characteristic personal attacks, including his frequent insults of Ms. Harris’s intelligence and appearance.

But at two events earlier this week — a speech in Asheville, N.C., and a news conference in Bedminster, N.J. — both billed as opportunities to discuss the economy, Mr. Trump veered into personal attacks against Ms. Harris, which he said he was “entitled” to do.