SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump offered a prayer as he continued to insult his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris and other women, saying he didn’t care about people in the path of Hurricane Milton as it began pummeling Florida. Even if it means turning off female voters, it will stop.
“I don’t want to be the good guy,” Trump said at the first of two rallies held in the pivotal battleground state of Pennsylvania. “Someone said, ‘You need to be nicer.’ Women won’t like that.’ I said, ‘I don’t care.’
Trump maintained his campaign schedule even as concerns that the storm would cause catastrophic damage to Tampa and other parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast threatened to overshadow the presidential race. Harris was scheduled to fly to Nevada later Wednesday for a western campaign stop, but initially attended a briefing on the storm and the federal response from President Joe Biden at the White House.
Trump hurled personal insults at Harris during a speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He called her “grossly incompetent” and “completely incompetent to serve as President of the United States.” ,” Harris appeared on Tuesday.
He called Sunny Hostin, who is black and Latino, “stupider than Kamala.”
“That person is a stupid woman. sorry. Sorry, girls, she’s an idiot.” He spoke about Hostin, who asked Harris if there was anything she would have done differently with Biden over the past four years. Harris responded, “Nothing comes to mind.” The Trump campaign togged this line as it attempted to portray her as nothing more than a continuation of Biden’s unpopular presidency in the final stages of the election.
In social media posts Tuesday, Trump said Harris was being exposed as a “counterfeit” and called daytime talk show hosts “degenerate.”
He is scheduled to appear in Reading, Pennsylvania, later Wednesday to talk about the economy and immigration in a city that is two-thirds Hispanic.
Just two weeks after Hurricane Helen devastated large swathes of the Southeast, Hurricane Milton has already halted its campaign. Trump, who moved to Florida after leaving the White House, postponed a virtual event Tuesday night focused on health care and postponed a Univision town hall that had been scheduled to take place in Miami.
Harris is planning a Univision town hall in Las Vegas on Thursday and is returning to Arizona for her second visit to the two states in less than two weeks.
At a rally in Scranton, Biden’s birthplace, Trump said he was praying for people in the path of the hurricane and wanted to send our love to everyone in Florida. “They’re going to be in big trouble tonight.”
“We are praying for them and asking God to keep them all safe. “I have never seen a hurricane like that,” he said. “You know very often, they talk about it and talk about it because they want you to see it. This is the real deal. This is bad.”
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, campaigning in Arizona, where early voting began on Wednesday, urged the country to come together to support those who will be affected.
“Those people are Americans. They are our neighbors. They are our family. “They are our friends,” he said, adding that unity across party lines is “critical” when facing natural disasters.
“It’s not about politics. This is about basic human decency,” Walz said. “It’s about leadership and character.
Milton is approaching just days after Hurricane Helen killed more than 220 people and left extensive damage across six southeastern states. Federal, state and local authorities are currently trying to mitigate it even as they prepare for the next storm.
Both Biden and Harris have condemned the misinformation and disinformation surrounding the federal response to Helene, including false claims that there is a cap on the amount of aid money a family can receive. They also decried the mistaken idea that funds were being illegally diverted to people in heavily Republican districts and countries and that federal authorities providing aid could end up stealing property from owners. Both pointed to Trump as leading many of the falsehoods.
“I want to make something clear. “Over the past few weeks, there has been a reckless, irresponsible and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies that have left people uneasy,” Biden said at the Milton briefing. “Confidence in the incredible rescue and recovery work that has already taken place and continues to take place is being undermined. And that’s harmful to the people who need it most.”
“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” Biden said of false rumors that funds were being diverted to illegally bring immigrants into the country. Biden also referenced Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s false suggestion that “I control the weather,” calling her comments “like something out of a comic book.”
“This is ridiculous,” Biden said. “You have to stop.”
He also told Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Deanne Criswell, “You’re doing an amazing job.”
Harris said once the hurricane passes, “we will be there to help people rebuild.”
Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images
“This is a storm that is expected to be of historic proportions,” she said. Addressing Floridians, Harris added: “Many of you I know are strong and have weathered hurricanes before. “This case will be different.”
Harris also participated in a call with Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about ongoing tensions in the Middle East. The Trump campaign said the former president spoke with Netanyahu after Iran’s recent missile attack on Israel.
“World leaders are eager to talk and meet with President Trump because they know he will soon return to the White House and restore peace around the world,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Carolyn Levitt said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Biden has already postponed a trip to Germany and Angola scheduled for this week, saying, “I don’t think I can go abroad at this time.”
Harris spent Tuesday in New York City taping interviews for “The View” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” with radio host Howard Stern. During her interview on “The View” and later taping with Colbert, Harris failed to mention any major ways in which her future administration would differ substantively from Biden’s.
In a statement, Trump and his campaign posted that Trump said “she would have done nothing” with Biden, whom Harris called “the worst president in American history.”
Harris had some sharp words of her own about her opponent. In Bob Woodward’s new book ‘War’, she said this about the report that President Trump secretly sent COVID-19 diagnostic kits, which are difficult to obtain in the United States, to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2020. Do you remember what it was like back then?”
“Do you remember how many people were scrambling to get tested without being able to get tested?” Harris asked while taping with Colbert. “Do you remember how rare it is to have them?”
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“And this guy is giving COVID-19 test kits to Vladimir Putin,” she said of Trump. “Think about what this means,” he said, adding, “He considers Vladimir Putin his friend. What about Americans? “Those people should be your first friends.”
Trump denied the reports. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the United States had sent test kits. He called them ‘testers’ but denied that the exchange took place in secret.
“There was no secret delivery. “The pandemic began then,” Peskov said in a message Wednesday. “Many countries were exchanging equipment. We sent ventilators. The testers are from the United States.”
Weissert reported from Washington and Colvin from New York. Mark Scolforo in Scranton contributed to this report.
