Trump campaigns in Wisconsin days after reportedly dissing Milwaukee

(NewsNation) — Just days after reportedly calling Milwaukee, Wisconsin, “horrible,” former President Donald Trump is holding a campaign rally in the key battleground state.

The event in Racine, Wisconsin, comes less than a month before the Republican National Convention.

Trump reportedly made the disparaging comments about Milwaukee in a closed-door meeting with Congressional Republicans pm Capitol Hill last week.

His campaign says the former president’s comments were referring to election integrity and crime, with Trump taking to Truth Social, posting, “Democrats are making up stories that I said Milwaukee is a ‘horrible city.’”

“This is false a complete lie, just like the Laptop from Hell was a lie, Russia, Russia, Russia, was a lie, and so much more. It’s called Disinformation, and that’s all they know how to do. I picked Milwaukee, I know it well. It should therefore lead to my winning Wisconsin,” he wrote, referring to the city hosting the upcoming Republican National Convention.

In the meantime, Trump is expected to deliver a familiar message in Racine, slamming President Joe Biden on his handling of immigration and the economy. He will also likely lay out how his MAGA-nomics is better than Bidenomics, something he has repeated on the campaign trail.

Before the RNC begins on July 15, Trump and Biden will participate in a presidential debate hosted by CNN on June 27. Trump and his team are convinced the debates will exacerbate voters’ concerns about Biden’s age and competence, while Biden’s team believes Trump’s often-incendiary rhetoric will remind voters of why they voted him out of the White House four years ago.

Trump’s senior advisers tell NewsNation the former president is preparing for the debate by holding meetings with GOP allies to hammer out policy, an unusual approach to debate prep.

Meanwhile, Biden will head to Camp David for a more traditional approach of preparing through mock debates.

Trump is hoping to win back support from blue-collar workers in the battleground state, which he lost to Biden in 2020. Wisconsin put Trump over the top in electoral college votes in 2016. Four years later, the state’s voters gave the win to Joe Biden by less than 1% of the vote.

The latest polling from NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ has Biden a point ahead of Trump in Wisconsin, predicting a tight race heading into the November election.