Donald Trump pokes fun at Kamala Harris over inflation before making her laugh

Former President Donald Trump tried to link Vice President Kamala Harris to high inflation during President Joe Biden's administration, but then resorted to spontaneous criticism that he said he had urged his allies to avoid.

“Yesterday, Kamala unveiled her so-called economic plan. She says she's going to lower the cost of food and housing from day one. But day one for Kamala was three and a half years ago,” Trump said on Saturday (Sunday AEDT) at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in the northeast of the state, near Scranton, where Biden was born.

In his 90-minute speech, Trump declared that he looked better than the vice president, but then quickly switched to personal attacks on Harris, the first black woman among a major party's presidential candidates.

“People say be nice. Have you heard them laugh? That's the laugh of a madman. That's the laugh of a lunatic,” he said.

Trump said his allies had urged him to limit the insults: “'Please, sir, don't call her a lunatic.' But she is.”

That approach has unsettled some Republicans and prompted the former president to focus more on issues like the economy and immigration, which voters say are central to their decision in November and where polls show Trump has the edge.

Harris unveiled an economic program earlier this week that would combat the burden of inflation with extensive new subsidies and tax breaks for poor and middle-class Americans. Trump has attacked that program as “communist,” and allies said Harris' initiatives to combat price gouging at grocery stores and provide a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers would only fuel inflation.

She will also campaign in Pennsylvania this weekend and is planning a bus tour that will begin in Pittsburgh on Sunday. Her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and their spouses will join her ahead of the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago, where they will accept their nominations.

Pennsylvania is one state where Harris' arrival has re-aligned the race. Trump narrowly won the state in 2016 – by less than a percentage point – and lost in another close race in 2020, this time by just over a percentage point.