WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday again sought to deliver a campaign message focused on the economy, but the Republican nominee repeatedly swerved into non sequiturs and personal attacks, including thrice declaring that he was better looking than Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump wound back and forth between hitting his points on economic policy and delivering a smattering of insults and impressions of President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron as he held a rally in northeastern Pennsylvania.

As he attacked Democrats for inflation, he asked his crowd of supporters, “You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter for a second, do you? Joe Biden hates her.”

Trump’s rally was in a swath of the battleground state where he hopes conservative, white working- class voters near Biden’s hometown will boost his chances of winning back the White House.

His remarks Saturday came as Democrats prepare for their four-day national convention that kicks off Monday in Chicago and will mark the party’s welcoming of Harris as their nominee. Her replacement of Biden with less than four months before the November election reinvigorated Democrats and their coalition, and has presented a challenge for Trump.

Trump laced in attacks on Harris’ laugh and said she was “not a very good wordsmith” and also mocked the names of the CNN anchors who moderated the debate he had with Biden in June. CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper moderated that debate.

He also hammered Harris on the economy, associating her with the administration’s inflation woes and likening her latest proposal against price gouging to measures in communist nations. Trump has said a federal ban on price gouging for groceries would lead to food shortages, rationing and hunger, and Saturday asked why she hadn’t worked to solve prices when she and Biden were sworn into office in 2021.

“Day one for Kamala was 3 1/2 years ago. So why didn’t she do it then? So this is day 1,305,” Trump said.

He maundered in his remarks from the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 to doing impressions of Macron’s French accent. But he took issue with the way his freewheeling style is typically portrayed in news reports.

“They will say he’s rambling. I don’t ramble. I’m a really smart guy,” he said.

He predicted financial ruin for the country and Pennsylvania in particular if Harris wins, citing her past opposition to fracking, an oil and gas extraction process. “Your state’s going to be ruined anyway. She’s totally anti-fracking,” he said.

In 2016 and 2020, Trump crushed his Democratic rivals in the county that is home to blue-collar Wilkes-Barre. The Rust Belt region, home to Biden’s native Scranton, offers Trump hope and helps him spotlight Democratic vulnerabilities after the president ended his reelection bid.

Harris’ campaign has tried to soften her stance on fracking, saying she would not ban it, even though that was her position when she was seeking the 2020 nomination.

Some Democrats in Pennsylvania acknowledge the challenges but say the economy is what concerns most people in the area.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis said voters are “really fired up.”

Davis argued that Trump “just goes on rambling rants and just makes personal attacks on Harris.”

On Sunday, Harris plans a bus tour starting in Pittsburgh, with a stop in Rochester, a town to the north. Trump has scheduled a visit Monday in York. Trump’s running mate JD Vance is expected to be in Philadelphia that day.

Meanwhile, in Nebraska, thousands of supporters turned out for Tim Walz on his first trip back to his home state since becoming the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

Supporters hope Walz’s rural roots — he grew up in the small towns of Valentine and Butte in the Sandhills — could help Democrats appeal to wide swaths of Republican strongholds.

“More than anything else — just like here in Nebraska — Minnesota’s strength comes from our values,” he said Saturday about the state he serves as governor.

His appearance in Omaha also reinforces the campaign’s interest in securing the single electoral vote that comes with winning the swing 2nd Congressional District, which Joe Biden secured in 2020 and Barack Obama won in 2008.

“I think it just proves the importance that we as the blue dot — CD2 — has,” teacher Wes Jensen said.