In the final, frenetic days of the 2024 campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump are crisscrossing the country, maintaining a dizzying schedule of rallies, public appearances and media interviews as they make their final speeches to voters in critical swing states. .

Trump is campaigning aggressively in North Carolina, with three weekend rallies in the state, where election officials have rushed to ensure voters are able to cast their votes in counties devastated by Hurricane Helene in September.

Harris, after rallies in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday, will spend Sunday in Michigan, a “blue wall” state where Trump eked out a victory in 2016 before narrowly losing to Joe Biden four years later.

Harris is scheduled to appear in and around Detroit on Sunday before an evening rally at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Trump’s controversial comments who said in Wisconsin last week that, “whether women like it or not,” he would protect them, resonated throughout the weekend, as did a strange moment during a Friday night rally in Milwaukee in which the former president ranted about microphone problems.

“Did you hear what Donny Trump said the other day?” rapper Cardi B said onstage at a rally Friday for Harris, who was also in Milwaukee.

“He said he’s going to protect women whether they like it or not,” Cardi B said, adding that “protecting women, especially if we’re talking about maternal and mental health care, is not telling them what to do with their bodies.” . “It’s about supporting them and giving them the care they need for what they choose to do with their bodies.”

During that event at the Wisconsin State Fair Expo Center, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson told attendees that “our community, we are literally, literally, the crossroads of this election,” underscoring the campaigns focus in the Badger State and its 10 electoral votes. .

“You know what’s going on in the city right now,” he added, referring to Trump’s rally seven miles away at Fiserv Forum, home of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks.

Within minutes of Trump’s speech, the crowd began chanting, “Fix the microphone!”

Trump, irritated, pulled the microphone from its stand and brought it up to his face. He became even angrier when the crowd again shouted that they couldn’t hear him.

“Do you want to see me hit people backstage?” Trump asked the crowd, who cheered approvingly.

While complaining about the low height of microphone stands at some of his events, Trump leaned over the stand, rubbed his hand up and down and shook his head with his mouth open as the audience laughed.

“Too low,” he said, pushing away the microphone stand.

The moment was widely mocked social networks by users who said Trump was pantomiming oral sex.

harris campaign tweeted a video of the moment along with a single question mark.

Kamala Harris arrives at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina on Saturday for a rally.

(Jacquelyn Martín / Associated Press)

During the rally in Milwaukee, Trump also highlighted the October jobs report.

The Labor Department reported Friday that American employers added 12,000 jobs in October, hampered by a pair of hurricanes (Milton and Helene) and a strike at Boeing. The 4.1% unemployment rate reflects a healthier overall economy.

Trump told supporters he did not believe the storms were a factor.

“This is like a depression,” he said. “And there is nothing, no event; I think they are trying to blame the hurricane. No, that was, you know, a small, relatively small area. No, not the hurricane. Not the hurricane. they are the hurricane.”

On Saturday morning, Trump called “Fox & Friends,” where he called the jobs report “a gift” to his campaign.

Typically, politicians refrain from gloating over economic numbers that are considered bad and instead express sympathy for Americans who are struggling financially.

Trump, however, said, “I finally got a gift.”

“I’m running against two people who just released the worst employment numbers, which is a big deal, the biggest economic problem, the most important thing that’s ever happened,” he said.

During a rally Saturday in Gastonia, North Carolina, Trump repeated his false claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency defrauded hurricane victims by using money intended for disaster relief for undocumented immigrants.

And he repeated his comments about protecting women.

“I am going to protect our women,” he said. “I got into a lot of trouble, you saw that.”

“I think women love me because they know, you know what? If they don’t have me, they’ll have millions of people coming and going up through the suburbs.”

She painted a dark, damsel-in-distress picture of women attacked in their homes by criminal immigrants.

“I think you have to protect women, men, children, everyone, but you have to protect women when they are at home in the suburbs,” she said.

The former president also promised a prominent role to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine crusader who has proposed conspiracy theories. In recent appearances supporting Trump, Kennedy has said he wants to get rid of “the toxins” in Americans’ food.

“We will make America healthy again,” Trump said. “RFK Jr. will be in charge of that.”

North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes are a coveted prize in the tight presidential race. Republicans have won the state in 12 of the last 14 presidential elections: Democrats Jimmy Carter won there in 1976 and Barack Obama won in 2008 before losing to Republican Mitt Romney four years later.

In 2020, Trump beat Biden by just over 1% of the vote.

On Saturday he told his supporters: “If we win this state, we will win the whole game.”

Harris, speaking in atlanta On Saturday, he highlighted his economic plans, saying his priority in the White House would be to reduce the cost of living.

Trump, he said, would take office “with a list of enemies in mind” and said he would arrive “with my to-do list,” including implementing a federal ban on food price gouging.

Harris said Trump is “increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed by grievance and the man seeks unchecked power.”

“In less than 90 days,” he said, “will it be him or me in the Oval Office?”

The crowd responded: “You!”