Trump to Biden birthplace: ‘Survival of our nation’ at stake

President Trump stepped on Joseph R. Biden’s big moment accepting the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday, showing up on the outskirts of his rival’s birth city to warn Pennsylvanians they would forfeit their guns, fracking and idyllic suburbs if the other side wins in November.

“The only thing they’re not abolishing is taxes,” he told supporters at Mariotti Building Products in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, just outside Scranton.

The president has refused to cede the spotlight during the week of the Democratic National Convention. He keeps muscling in to offer harsh reviews of the Democrats’ program or to spar with former President Barack Obama, who on Wednesday said Mr. Trump was incapable of growing into the role.

Mr. Trump said he wasn’t impressed by Sen. Kamala D. Harris’ speech as the vice-presidential candidate, either.

“I watched Kamala last night and said ’I’ll take Mike,’” Mr. Trump said of Vice President Mike Pence.

Mr. Trump’s stop at the home-supplier near Mr. Biden’s birthplace of Scranton was his fifth visit to a swing state this week.

The president drew a straight line between Mr. Biden’s bid and violent protests in cities such as Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon, reviving his mantra of “law and order.”

“At stake in this election is the survival of our nation, it’s true,” he said. “Because we’re dealing with crazy people on the other side.”

Mr. Trump faulted Mr. Biden for Obamacare’s “Cadillac tax” on generous health plans, which was never implemented but upset both businesses and labor unions until it was repealed in 2019, and promoted a forthcoming “favored nations” order to align the price of doctor-administered drugs with the amount other countries pay.

Mr. Trump said he’s trying to end wars the Obama-Biden team couldn’t and reprised his complaints about widespread mail-in balloting, suggesting it is ripe for fraud that would benefit Democrats.

“The only way they’re going to win is by a rigged election,” Mr. Trump said.

The president spoke hours before the prime-time address from Mr. Biden, who moved to Delaware as a child but tends to highlight his blue-collar roots in swing-state Pennsylvania.

“He’ll remind us that he was born in Scranton, but you know he left like 70 years ago,” Mr. Trump said.

Many polls show the former vice president with a single-digit lead over Mr. Trump, with a 5.7 percentage-point edge in the Real Clear Politics average.

Mr. Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,000 voters in 2016 and sees it as key to his reelection chances.

“We love this state, we won this state,” Mr. Trump told supporters. “I went to school in Pennsylvania, as you know.”

The president will receive the Republican nomination on Monday in a livestreamed vote from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Attendance will be limited by COVID-19 rules in North Carolina. Six delegates from each state and territory, or 336 in all, and a small group of reporters will be able to attend in-person, according to the Republican National Committee.

The president will deliver a live speech accepting the nomination from the White House on Thursday.

Mr. Trump has been crisscrossing the country this week to remind Americans of what the economy looked like before the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 173,000 in the U.S. He stopped in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Arizona for campaign-style speeches and touched down in Iowa for a brief update on its recovery from a high-wind derecho that destroyed millions of acres of crops.

The Labor Department said more than 1.1 million Americans filed new unemployment claims last week. That’s up from just under 1 million the prior week — a sign that layoffs continue and there may be more rough economic seas ahead.

The president on Thursday repeated a misleading claim that New Zealand had a “massive” outbreak after seeming to conquer the coronavirus — it has barely cracked a dozen cases per day, while the U.S. sees more than 40,000 — and said Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf won’t reopen the economy until after the election.

Mr. Biden has slammed Mr. Trump’s handling of the pandemic. He says governors should issue mask mandates and says Democrats will “build back better.”

Though Mr. Trump got a head start on Mr. Biden’s airtime, one of his former allies threatened to take over the news cycle.

Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon was arrested Thursday on wire fraud charges. Federal prosecutors in New York say Mr. Bannon and others siphoned money from an online campaign set up to raise private funds for the president’s signature wall along the Mexico border.

The president said he didn’t like the fundraising project and hasn’t associated with Mr. Bannon for a long time.

“I don’t know that he was in charge. I didn’t know any of the other people even,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s sad, it’s very sad.”