President Biden is keeping his campaign focused on Pennsylvania, a swing state that is crucial to his re-election hopes, spoke on Wednesday at the United Steelworkers headquarters in Pittsburgh. Former President Donald J. Trump, his Republican opponent, will get a short reprieve from his felony criminal trial in New York with a scheduled break.
Mr. Biden has hammered Mr. Trump during his appearances in Pennsylvania so far. Visiting his hometown, Scranton, on Tuesday, Mr. Biden portrayed Mr. Trump as cozy with billionaires and plutocrats, while emphasizing that his own proposals would raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy and use the revenue to help working families. Mr. Biden also needled Mr. Trump about his financial troubles, as well as the plummeting price of shares in his social media company.
“If Trump’s stock in Truth Social — his company — drops any lower, he might do better under my tax plan than his,” Mr. Biden quipped.
But in Mr. Trump’s view, the greater insult is that he has been in a New York courtroom while Mr. Biden campaigns. The former president and his campaign continued to express outrage that the trial was keeping Mr. Trump from the campaign trail.
“Election interference!” Mr. Trump wrote on Tuesday morning on Truth Social, and added, in all caps: “Rigged, unconstitutional trial!”
While stuck in the deep-blue state of New York, Mr. Trump made a campaign stop at a bodega in Harlem after his trial adjourned on Tuesday. Surrounded by supporters, detractors and curious onlookers, the former president took the optimistic perspective that the Empire State was competitive in this year’s election, vowing that he would “make a big play for New York” — adding that his court schedule would allow him to campaign nearby.
Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump in New York in the 2020 election by a margin of nearly two million votes.
Nicholas Nehamas contributed reporting from Scranton, Pa. and Michael Gold contributed reporting.
