On Sunday, former President Donald Trump sat down with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning Futures." The conversation was free-wheeling and covered many topics, including the border crisis, the economy, Joe Biden's decline, Kamala Harris's weakness as a candidate, and his big plans for a second term.

Trump started by stating his confidence in the state of the race:

I feel great. We're leading in all swing states. We're leading mostly in nationals. You know, I'm a believer in polls, some of them are fake, like a lot of writers, but I'm a believer in polls, and we're leading in just about every swing state. I think we're leading now in every swing state. And, uh, she (Kamala Harris) can't talk. There's something wrong with the candidate, but I'll take it. But I think we're doing very well, yeah.

As of this writing, the RealClearPolitics averages have Donald Trump (narrowly) leading Kamala Harris in six of the seven battleground states, the one exception being Wisconsin, where Harris holds a razor-edged 0.3-point lead. That's not a comfortable place for the Harris campaign to be, with a little over three weeks left to go and early voting already underway.

On the economy and the border, Trump said:

I think the border is a bigger deal than even inflation. Inflation is a massive word, the bad economy is massive. Inflation made the economy bad, it made it impossible for people. But I almost think when they see millions of people coming into our country, 13,099 murderers, many of them murdered more than one person, when they see that, I actually think the border is a bigger issue than even the economy.

Trump also laid out his closing-the-deal campaign plans:

MARIA BARTIROMO: You told me back in February that you were going to rent out Madison Square Garden for a rally. And now, you're going to do it at the end of October.

DONALD TRUMP: Not only Madison Square Garden but we're taking four or five arenas, we fill them up very fast as you know we took where the Islanders play, you know, in Long Island, we had 22... 23,000 people. We could have sold it out literally three times. Thousands of people. We had tens of thousands that couldn't get in, we put screens on the outside of the building so they could see it.

An interesting point was also made regarding Trump's return to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the first assassination attempt. Trump opened his speech there by pronouncing, "As I was saying..." That's far from the worst statement of defiance ever made by a political candidate, and it serves as a reminder of that day when we saw some of the most powerful political imagery in recent times.

That image may well be worth a hundred thousand votes.

Trump explained to Bartiromo why he wanted to return to Butler; there was "unfinished business."

He also sang the praises of Elon Musk (and his black "Dark MAGA" cap) and observed that Musk is campaigning on behalf of Trump in Pennsylvania - a key state in the upcoming election. He plans to work every day, to sprint to the finish--in effect, up to the election.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris' campaign seems to lurch from failure to embarrassment to foul-up. Her running mate has been sent out to appeal, it seems, to the "real men" demographic, which is an error on the order of hiring "PeeWee Herman" to advertise for a body-building course. Kamala Harris herself seems unable to handle anything that isn't carefully planned and stage-managed - and sometimes, not even then.

See Related: Kamala Harris Collapses in ABC and NBC News Polls, Previously Two of Her Best

REVEALED: Kamala Harris' Town Hall With 'Undecided Latino Voters' Was Rigged

There are, as of this writing, 22 days and change until Election Day. The Trump/Vance campaign pretty clearly plans to keep hammering their points, to keep up the pressure on Kamala Harris, and to close the deal in the next three weeks. Trump's trademark rallies may not bring in a lot of new voters, although in the interview with Maria Bartiromo, the former president noted that they are registering a lot of people to vote. But the rallies do serve to fire up the base, to motivate Trump loyalists, and that's certainly worth doing.

You can watch the full interview here:

Watch @MariaBartiromo's interview with @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/ilvE08OXtJ

— SundayMorningFutures (@SundayFutures) October 13, 2024

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