Harris and Trump target economy in close US election battle

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will on Wednesday lay out rival visions for the economy, the top issue for many US voters, ahead of the vice president’s first major solo interview since entering the White House race.

Harris is giving a speech in Pittsburgh, an industrial city in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, in which the Democrat will set out what her campaign says is a “pragmatic” policy, contrasting with that of billionaire former president Trump.

The vice president will then sit down with the left-leaning news channel MSNBC, in a rare test of her ability to deal with unscripted questions since taking over from President Joe Biden as the party’s standard-bearer.

Republican contender Trump delivered remarks on what he called a “Made in America” economy, although he made headlines on foreign policy as he upped his harsh rhetoric against US adversary Iran.

The dueling events were taking place against a backdrop of fresh security worries with Trump, who has already escaped two assassination attempts this year, saying that there were “big threats” on his life from Tehran.

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.

The election remains on a knife-edge less than six weeks before November 5 voting day, with many Americans saying the economy is the most important issue after years of high prices in the post-Covid rebound.

Harris and Trump are both tailoring their economic messaging at the tiny number of wavering voters, in around half a dozen swing states, who are expected to decide the election for a nation of 330 million people.

Since replacing Biden in July, polls have shown Harris gaining on Trump in terms of whom voters trust most on the economy — but that voters remain unfamiliar with her policies.

– ‘Putting America first’ –

Harris’s campaign said her speech in Pittsburgh would focus on her own middle-class upbringing to show she understands the pressures of making ends meet, in contrast to tycoon Trump.

“For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers. Not those who build them. Not those who wire them. Not those who mop the floors,” she plans to say, according to the campaign.

She will also unveil proposals to “make sure America leads the world in manufacturing in the industries of the future.”

Trump is making similar pledges to boost American manufacturing, but with his own protectionist twist.

He told supporters in Mint Hill, North Carolina that his “unwavering commitment to putting America first is exactly what this country needs to restore our economy.”

Trump complained that the Biden administration had allowed Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian to address to the UN General Assembly in New York with “large security forces guarding him,” while the ex-president was under threat from the US adversary.

The comment came the Trump campaign said that top US intelligence officials briefed the candidate on threats from Iran to assassinate him.

“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,” he said.

Harris’s MSNBC interview being broadcast at 7pm ET (2300 GMT) is meanwhile part of her effort to define herself after criticism from Republicans for largely avoiding major interviews and giving no press conferences.

Since Biden dropped out she has only given one interview with a national TV network, in August, when she and her running mate Tim Walz sat for a joint CNN interview.

Trump’s vice-presidential pick J.D. Vance described the decision to go on liberal-leaning MSNBC as “legitimately pathetic for a person who wants to be president.”

Trump has given a number of interviews in recent weeks, but many of those have also been to friendly media — while several of his events billed as press conferences ended with him taking no questions.

dk-ft/bgs