From the kitchen table to the world stage, Trump just defined what separates him and Kamala Harris

Donald Trump did in 90 minutes Thursday what Republicans have craved in the weeks since the Democrats pulled their historic switcheroo and put Kamala Harris atop their ticket: Trump defined succinctly what separates him from his fall election opponent.

With food props that adorn every American’s kitchen table, the former president used a press conference to drive home what the real cost of the Biden-Harris economic agenda is to ordinary Americans, and why elitists can't grasp inflation’s true impact. “Grocery prices have skyrocketed,” he declared, rattling off official government statistics that show cereals are up 26%, bread up 24%, butter up 37%, baby formula up 30% and eggs up 46%.

“How can a family afford that?” Trump asked the crowd of reporters gathered at his Bedminster, N.J., retreat. They didn’t seem to have any answers.

Staying at the kitchen table, he even offered a rare insight into his own personal humanity, jokingly admitting he preferred Cheerios for breakfast though he hadn’t had them in a long time.

At other times, Trump interjected folksy but authentic tales about his interactions with global leaders during his first term, pointedly yet entertainingly reminding Americans that at a time of grave insecurity at home and abroad he possesses an experience and resume that Harris does not.

The stories with names like Putin, Netanyahu and Xi moved to top of the minds a question bouncing in the recesses of many voters’ minds after 24 straight days of Harris ducking unscripted interviews and news conferences. Trump asked rhetorically, "If the vice president isn’t willing to even answer reporters, how can she answer the taunts and threats of global tyrants like Vladimir Putin or the Iranian mullahs? People don't respect her in the world. People don't respect her in the economy,” Trump offered in answer to that question.

He also made Harris own the incumbency of a vice presidency that left the vast majority of Americans believing their country is headed in the wrong direction.

“Harris has just declared that tackling inflation will be a 'Day One priority' for her,” Trump noted. “But Day One for Kamala was three and a half years ago.” Although she has tried to distance herself from the devastating failure of "Bidenomics," conservative critics have been quick to point out that Harris not only bragged about Bidenomics "working" but positioned herself publicly to take credit for those policies. 

Popular conservative blog HotAir posted that "A mere year ago, her rhetoric was chock full of 'when President Biden and I took office, we decided...' The 'we's' and the 'I's' abound through this brag session," to which the blog linked a damning video clip of Harris' taking credit for Bidenomics.

To the millions of legal immigrants who fled communism and socialism from Eastern Europe to Latin America, Trump also turned some of Kamala Harris’ most recent proposals into liabilities, including her plan released just hours earlier Thursday to impose prices caps on Medicare drugs and services.

“The Radical Left person wants to put price controls all over the place, which will end up driving up your prices, not down,” he said.

“She's running on the Maduro plan. We call it the plan, like something straight out of Venezuela or the Soviet Union,” he quipped, citing the Venezuelan dictator who is now accused of election cheating.

“She wants to change a free enterprise type country into a communist type country,” he concluded. Man on the street interview over months have shown that’s an argument that resonates with many legal immigrants who fled the repression of their homelands.

Thursday’s news conference had the makings of a change moment in the rollercoaster Election of 2024.

Some Republicans and many media elites for days have wondered whether the 45th president had lost his footing in a race that he appeared to be leading until Harris and Democratic Party insiders bumped Joe Biden from the ticket. Trump's speeches were knocked as meandering. His questions about Harris playing the race card were deemed insensitive. His demeanor was dark and grumpy, the critics argued.

But on a sunny, breezy afternoon on New Jersey’s shore, Trump erased that chatter and changed the narrative. He focused on the three "I"’s that are Harris’ biggest liability: inflation, insecurity and the insanity her and Tim Walz’s far-left policies have unleashed on Americans, and the inexperience her resume and personal demeanor convey. He had prescriptions for each and sweetened them with the self-assured optimism that voters can fix what worries them most with a simple decision in November,

“My message to them would be very simple: vote for Trump and we're going to fix the problem. We're going to get it fixed,” he promised.

Even before Thursday’s event, Trump’s polling numbers seemed to rebound. A Fox poll put him up nationally by 1 point, and several battleground state polls from Trafalgar had him back in the lead after a brief recess.

But the 90 minutes at Bedminster on Thursday provided a political theater moment the team in red wanted.

"I was just really impressed with what President Trump had to say," Arizona GOP Senate nominee and Trump ally Kari Lake told Just the News afterwards. "And you saw the groceries out there. There's not a single American right now who's not struggling to make ends meet and just simply buy food right now."

As Trump's event was winding down, the former president fielded an unexpected query from the reporting crew that reminded voters of one other moment in history that separates him, not only from Harris, but most other politicians too: he survived an assassin’s bullet by mere millimeters.

“It's a miracle, and God had something to do with it,” Trump answered on why he thought his life was spared. “And maybe it's we want to save the world.”