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Aug. 14 (UPI) -- Former President Donald Trump would improve the lives of all Americans by lowering living costs, he told a receptive crowd at Harrah's Cherokee Center in Asheville, N.C., Wednesday afternoon. Trump approached the lectern shortly after 4 p.m. EDT to chants of "USA, USA," called Vice President Kamala Harris a "radical-left person from San Francisco" and said he's leading in the polls despite the recent change in opponents.
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Yet, despite that change, he started the event by talking about the former candidate.
"[President] Joe Biden is a very angry man," Trump said of the man who, up until last month, was expected to be whom he was running against for the White House.
Talking about the Democrats and Biden's candidacy, Trump said, "They took it away from him. They usurped it."
Trump said Biden secured 14 million votes compared to none for Harris. But the Democratic Party forced Biden off the ballot, Trump contended.
"That's not supposed to happen," Trump said. "They are a threat to democracy."
Despite the sudden change in candidates, Trump said he's poised to win the election on Nov. 5.
"We're going to defeat Kamala Harris in an historic landslide and take the White House back," he told the audience.
"Six weeks ago, nobody thought she had a chance," Trump said of Harris and called her the "most unpopular vice president in our country's history."
He said, "Everything Kamala Harris touches turns bad -- San Francisco, California and the border."
Trump said inflation has devastated many American families and is the most important subject during the election cycle, followed closely by crime and border security.
The Biden-Harris administration has turned the United States into a "third-world nation" and the "American dream is dead" due to their policies, he proclaimed.
If voters put him back in office, "We will rapidly drive prices down and make America affordable again," Trump told the audience.
To accomplish that, Trump said he would close the border, deport illegal migrants and lower inflation by making the United States energy-independent again.
His cited his economic roadmap, which he said will cut energy costs, stop electric vehicle mandates, end "job-killing regulations" and help seniors by not taxing Social Security. And, Trump said, this and more would lower inflation.
"Are you better off now under Biden-Harris than you were under a man named President Donald Trump?" he asked the audience. "Vote Trump and your incomes will grow."
He said Harris failed miserably as the nation's "border czar" and now she wants to control the nation's economy after being a part of the current administration, whose policies, Trump said, have caused a rapid rise in inflation.
Trump said Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have never held a private-sector job and he described them as "beyond socialists."
"Harris said she will tackle inflation on day one," Trump said. "Day one was three and a half years ago."
He blamed the Biden-Harris administration for the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, called the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan a disaster and said the administration's policies have caused high inflation rates.
"Kamala Harris will only make things worse," Trump said, adding that the poverty rates among Blacks and Hispanics were at record lows while he was in office, but Biden-Harris policies ended that, he said.
"We handed them the strongest economy in history," Trump said. "They quickly turned it into a disaster."
He said they did so by "waging war" on the U.S. energy sector, allowing tens of millions of illegal immigrants to enter the nation, promoting ineffective green energy programs and creating job-killing regulations that raised costs by $10,000 annually for U.S. families.
Trump blamed Biden, Harris and "liberal extremism" for raising energy, food, housing and other living costs and accused Harris of "flip flopping" on border policies, healthcare and crime.
He said Harris refuses to do interviews or press conferences because "she's not intelligent" and accused the Democratic Party of keeping Harris "in the basement" like they "did with Biden" in 2020.
Democrats have destroyed the nation and will "permanently destroy the country" if Harris is elected, he added.
"She will be a San Francisco liberal again, destroying everything in sight," Trump said of Harris.
By contrast, Trump said his administration will use a "whole-of-government effort to fight inflation and lower the cost of living for all people.
"Prices will come down, and they will come down fast," Trump said.
He said the Biden-Harris administration has waged war on American energy, but his administration would "drill, baby, drill" to lower energy prices and related inflation.
"Your prices are gonna come tumbling down," Trump said. "Gas, heating and cooling bills."
"Under my leadership, the United States will commit to an ambitious goal of slashing energy prices by at least half" within 12 months of him taking office, he said.
Trump promised no taxes on tip income for the service industry and no taxes on Social Security to help seniors living on fixed incomes.
"I will always protect Social Security and Medicare for our senior citizens," Trump said, adding that Harris wants to destroy both by overloading the system with illegal migrants until the programs collapse.
He accused Harris of wanting to give "welfare, healthcare and food stamps to illegal immigrants while veterans are sleeping on streets in winters" and "migrants are living in hotels."
"We have a new category of crime -- migrant crime," Trump added.
Harris wants to give tens of millions of migrants "mass amnesty and citizenship," Trump said, adding he would undertake the "largest deportation operation in U.S. history" if he wins the election.
Trump also said he would keep the Affordable Care Act in place unless something better is available.
Trump took credit for lowering insulin prices to $35, for which he said the Biden-Harris administration falsely takes credit.
Trump also promised to open up tracts of federal land for building new housing to make it more affordable to buy a home and bring "millions and millions" of manufacturing jobs back to the United States while imposing tariffs on foreign made goods from China and other nations.
"Everyone will prosper. Every family will thrive, and every day will be filled with opportunity, hope and joy" if voters choose to put him back in the White House, Trump concluded.
Trump running mate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, appeared in the swing state of Michigan Wednesday afternoon with less than three months to go until the Nov. 5 election.
On Thursday in Maryland, Biden and Harris are scheduled to make their first appearance together since Biden dropped out of the presidential race.
Harris on Friday is scheduled to deliver her first policy speech at an event in Raleigh, N.C.
And Trump is scheduled to hold another rally Saturday in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
