AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Well, it's less than a week until the last votes are cast in this year's presidential election, and the candidates are crisscrossing the country, making their final pitches. Former President Trump is doing so while dealing with lingering controversy from his major rally in New York City on Sunday, though he is hammering on a remark made by President Biden. NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is following the Trump campaign and joins us now. Hi, Danielle.

DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hey, there.

CHANG: So I see how every day is so packed with events this close to Election Day. What is Trump up to today?

KURTZLEBEN: Well, he was in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, for a rally this afternoon - so not only a swing state, but that's also where there is this House district that Republicans have a shot at flipping from a Democratic seat. Now, tonight, Trump has a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with former Packers quarterback Brett Favre.

Now, as for his message, his rally today was mostly pretty standard for Trump. He talked about his plan to do mass deportations. He also talked about inflation. But also, as you mentioned there, he really railed against this comment that President Biden made Tuesday night. Biden had been talking about Trump's Sunday Madison Square Garden rally, where, at that rally, a comedian referred to Puerto Rico as a, quote, "floating island of garbage." Biden, in talking about this, stumbled over his words, and it momentarily sounded like he was calling Trump supporters garbage.

CHANG: Huh. OK, so you have this comment from Biden, and you have a series of racist and misogynist comments from that New York rally. Tell us how Trump addressed all of that today. Did he?

KURTZLEBEN: Well, regarding the Biden comment, very much. He talked about that as if Biden insulted Trump supporters. But if you listen to Biden's full statement, grammatically, garbage refers to that insulting joke about Puerto Rico. But Trump is clearly seeing this as an opportunity to get out from under the shadow of this rally. He's linking Harris and Walz to Biden in the process. Here he was today.

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DONALD TRUMP: You can't lead America if you don't love Americans. You just can't.

(CHEERING)

TRUMP: And you can't be president if you hate the American people. And there's a lot of hatred there.

KURTZLEBEN: And it really harkens back to Hillary Clinton in 2016, calling some Trump supporters a basket of deplorables. Well, Trump seized on that back then. And even today, some Trump supporters still claim that deplorables mantle. But all of that said here, let's keep in mind that Trump's message isn't exactly peace and love and unity. He, after all, has called the U.S. a, quote, "garbage can for the world" recently, in reference to immigration.

CHANG: OK, well, despite trying to draw attention to Biden's comments, Trump is still fielding a lot of criticism from that New York rally, right?

KURTZLEBEN: Very much. The Trump campaign has distanced itself from that one specific joke about Puerto Rico, but they haven't really answered for the other vulgar statements made at that rally. And there were a lot of those statements - about Kamala Harris, about women, about Latinos as a whole. Plus, Tucker Carlson told the crowd that political leaders are trying to replace American voters, which is a reference to the racist great replacement theory. At any rate, Trump is doing this very broad cleanup. He has called the New York rally a love fest. And at a rally in Pennsylvania last night, he said, quote, "nobody loves our Latino community and our Puerto Rican community more than I do."

CHANG: OK. So aside from that, it sounds like Trump gave a pretty standard speech at today's Rocky Mount rally. What should people be watching for in these final stops for the Trump campaign?

KURTZLEBEN: Well, again, his central message is always immigration, inflation and isolationism. There's also often some grievance mixed in with that, but just as central to his message is his persona. He's unpredictable. He's often insulting to his opponents. He's recently been calling Kamala Harris low IQ or stupid. None of this is a policy position, but his faithful voters love that side of him. They see it as a sign of honesty. And that's honesty, they perceive, from a guy who also continues to lie about the 2020 election.

CHANG: That is NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. Thank you, Danielle.

KURTZLEBEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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