A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
While the DNC in Chicago will draw tens of millions of viewers this week, former President Donald Trump will be trying to get his own share of attention.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Yeah, Trump has put together a packed week of events in swing states to try to counter Vice President Harris' recent polling surge.
MARTÍNEZ: For more on what Trump has planned, NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben joins us from Chicago. Danielle, the Democrats are getting their week in the spotlight in Chicago. So what will Donald Trump be doing this week?
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: He'll be doing a run of swing state events along with his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance. So today, they both hit Pennsylvania. Tuesday, Trump is in Michigan, Vance is in Wisconsin, Wednesday, they go to North Carolina. After that, Trump goes to Arizona and Nevada. So really, a lot of travel, a - trying to talk to a lot of crowds.
Now, the goal is to define Harris and Walz, as they've been trying to do for weeks. And it's to really hit them on areas that the Trump team believes they're weak on. They have themes for each of these days that Trump and Vance are out - for example, economy, crime, immigration - areas they've been attacking Harris on. Really, the Trump team is just trying to go on offense and end the Harris-Walz honeymoon that Democrats are having.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, Donald Trump held a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., over the weekend. You were there. What was there to learn from that one?
KURTZLEBEN: You know, it was a lot like a lot of other Trump rallies. It was pretty full. The crowd was enthusiastic. He meandered quite a bit. He said a lot of outlandish things. He made a lot of personal attacks. At one point, he argued that he's better looking than Kamala Harris. That was new. But I think it's important to pull out how Trump talks about policy as he's making these more pointed attacks on Harris' economic plans. So at this rally, he defended the tariffs that he wants to impose on goods from abroad. Here he is.
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DONALD TRUMP: A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. That's the way it is, whether you like it or not. A lot of people like to say, oh, it's a tax on us. No, no, no. It's a tax on a foreign country. It's a tax on a country that's ripping us off and stealing our jobs.
KURTZLEBEN: Now, to hear him describe it there, you'd think that the Chinese government, for example, might shell out money to the U.S. treasury because of U.S. tariffs, but that is not at all how it works. U.S. businesses, U.S. importers pay those tariffs, and the costs are passed on to U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices, or potentially, they might affect foreign businesses who have to, for example, lower prices or sell elsewhere.
Now, I tell you all this because this is important while we look at their economic plans. While it's true Harris hasn't laid out specifics on a lot of her agenda, and she's getting dinged for that, it's also true that Trump has some of these policies he has talked about for a while. And these policies not only could have real economic consequences, but he's also - on these tariffs, for example - either unclear on or lying about how they'd work.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, the Harris-Walz campaign just wrapped up a bus tour in Pennsylvania. Trump is going to do another rally in Pennsylvania on Monday in York, and Trump has promised to go back to Butler. That's where he was nearly assassinated. So remind us why Pennsylvania's so crucial. Why are we talking about Pennsylvania so much?
KURTZLEBEN: It's a tightly matched state with a lot of electoral votes. It has 19 of those votes. It's tied with Illinois as the state with the fifth most. And really, when you look at scenarios of how this election might go, which states are solidly blue, solidly red, Pennsylvania is just crucial for anyone to win.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben in Chicago. Thank you, Danielle.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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