2024 split screen plays out in dueling Harris, Trump speeches
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Vice President Kamala Harris slammed the "Trump abortion ban" during a speech Wednesday in Florida, while hundreds of miles away in Wisconsin, former President Trump focused his fire on President Biden's handling of the economy.
Why it matters: The dueling speeches underscore the split screen that's likely to play out over the next six months.
- Republicans want to talk about the economy, which is repeatedly a top issue for battleground voters.
- Democrats want to talk about abortion rights, which have won every time they've been on the ballot since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
In Jacksonville, Florida, Harris invoked Trump's name over 20 times during her speech in Jacksonville, CNN reports.
- Florida's ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy went into effect on Wednesday.
- "Across our nation, we witness a full-on assault, state by state, on reproductive freedom," Harris said Wednesday. "And understand who is to blame: former President Donald Trump did this."
- Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, and said in a TIME interview published Tuesday that it's up to the states to decide to monitor women's pregnancies to know if they know if they've received an abortion.
In Waukesha, Wisconsin, Trump sought to capitalize on the polling showing voters trust him more on the economy, despite the economy improving under Biden.
- "With me in the White House, we will protect the Trump tax cuts for working families, we will make our middle class stronger, bigger, better, stronger, wealthier and more prosperous than ever before," Trump said.
- The Biden campaign has worked to remind Americans what the economy — and unemployment — looked like at the height of the pandemic under Trump, Axios' Hans Nichols reports.
- "We're now in a Biden stagflation," Trump said, "which spells the death of the American dream, and that doesn't even include some of the horrible numbers that we're seeing flowing in from the poor and crime-ridden countries all over the world," he said.
Reality check: "I don't see the stag- or the -flation," Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said earlier on Wednesday, referring to "stagflation."
- "Stagflation" refers to a period of slow economic growth, high unemployment and high inflation.
Go deeper: As Florida's six-week abortion ban starts, here's how providers are preparing
