Trump to slam Harris on inflation ahead of major policy roll-out

Donald Trump will tear into the Biden administration's economic record Wednesday, just days before Kamala Harris unveils her economic agenda in her first major policy speech as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.

Trump's campaign said he would deliver remarks in the city of Asheville, in the crucial battleground state of North Carolina, on the "economic hardships created by the Harris-Biden administration."

"Hard-working Americans are suffering because of the Harris-Biden administration's dangerously liberal policies," the campaign said in a statement.

"Prices are excruciatingly high, and the cost of living has soared -- leaving those on a fixed-income unsure of how they are going to afford a basic standard of living in the future."

Harris replaced President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket last month, and has since been riding a tidal wave of enthusiasm, speaking to packed arenas and eclipsing Trump's polling leads -- leaving the Republican scrambling to reset.

More Americans trust the vice president to handle the economy than Trump, at 42 percent to 41 percent, according to research by the University of Michigan, in the first major poll of the election to show the Republican behind on the issue.

But Harris has yet to settle on a concrete plan for governing, instead framing the campaign in the broadest of strokes as a "fight for the future," as Republicans pressure her to sit for media interviews and talk policy.

She is due to roll out a plan to lower costs for middle-class families and take on corporate price gouging in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday.

- Protecting benefits -

But Trump hopes to upstage her by arriving first in a state where he says residents are struggling to afford health care following a 21 percent rise in prices over Biden's term.

"This is why President Trump has promised to not cut a single penny from Social Security or Medicare and why he has always pledged to protect these imperative benefits to America's seniors," it said.

During his presidency, Trump released four successive annual budgets that proposed cutting Medicare, a federal health insurance program for seniors. Experts disagree on how much those cuts would have hurt beneficiaries had they been enacted.

Trump told reporters last week he didn't plan to hold swing state campaign events until after next week's Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

But Republicans have been pressuring him to do more to show he can keep up with Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, who have attracted blockbuster crowds to their events.

Asheville is part of a series of planned campaign stops themed around specific topics and will be followed Saturday by an event focusing on consumer prices, crime and immigration in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.

Trump won his narrowest victory in North Carolina in his losing 2020 campaign, and it is considered one of the handful of swing states that tend to decide US elections.

But Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, is a liberal enclave and some locals have been scratching their heads over Trump's decision to visit.

Several local media outlets reported that Trump's alleged one-time paramour, porn actress Stormy Daniels, would be performing her stage show in town two days after the ex-president, but there was no suggestion that this had any bearing on his schedule.