Campaigning in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County on Sunday as the 2024 campaign draws to a close, former President Donald Trump spouted angry, baseless claims about Democrats attempting to steal the 2024 election from him while telling supporters he “shouldn’t have left” office after losing in 2020 and discussing reporters being shot.

Trump spread similar false claims and conspiracy theories in 2020 and early 2021 as he attempted to overturn his loss and remain in power, an effort that has resulted in two criminal prosecutions of the 2024 Republican presidential nominee and the prosecution of more than 1,500 people for the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, illegal efforts to name alternate slates of Electoral College electors in states Trump lost and threats against election workers, among other alleged and adjudicated crimes.

“I shouldn't have left. I mean, honestly, because we did so well,” Trump said about 15 minutes into his more than 90-minute remarks at an airport in Lititz, Pa. He called the United States “a crooked country,” promising that “we’re going to make it straight.”

“I tell you what, I love being off these stupid teleprompters, because the truth comes out. The truth comes out, and at least you find out that,” he added.

At one point, as he discussed the protective ballistic glass that surrounds him at rallies since the two assassination attempts on his life earlier this year, Trump said that if someone wanted to shoot him, they would have to “shoot through the fake news” positioned across from him at the rally.

“And I don’t mind that so much. I don't mind. I don't mind that,” Trump said, as the crowd cheered and laughed. He later called the press “fake,” “worse than the politicians” and re-upped his public consideration of stripping broadcast TV news networks of their licenses for coverage he dislikes. 

Trump’s campaign issued a statement after the rally arguing Trump was not talking about the media getting shot and claimed that he was “stating that the Media was in danger, in that they were protecting him and, therefore, were in great danger themselves, and should have had a glass protective shield, also.” Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung also blamed Democrats for the two assassination attempts.

“President Trump was brilliantly talking about the two assassination attempts on his own life, including one that came within 1/4 of an inch from killing him, something that the Media constantly talks and jokes about. The President’s statement about protective glass placement has nothing to do with the Media being harmed, or anything else,” Cheung said in the statement. “There can be no other interpretation of what was said. He was actually looking out for their welfare, far more than his own!"

It was the second time in recent days that Trump has talked about guns being pointed at people he considers enemies after he suggested former Rep. Liz Cheney, a prominent Republican critic, wouldn't be willing to support foreign wars if she had “nine barrels shooting at her.

Trump has brought up complaints, criticisms and falsehoods about election integrity in the United States with increasing frequency as Election Day rapidly approaches. On Sunday, the second-to-last day of campaigning before Tuesday, Trump used his first stop of the day to rail against his political foes -- including Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats, former administration officials-turned-critics, the press, and pollsters -- and falsely accuse them of “fighting so hard to steal this damn thing.”

“I'm the only one that talks about it, because everyone's afraid to damn talk about it, and then they accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist, ‘he’s a conspiracy-’ and they want to lock you up. They want to put you in jail,” Trump said. “The ones that should be locked up by the ones that cheat on these horrible elections that we go through in our country.”

The former president called Harris “a totally corrupt person,” spread false claims about voter fraud in Pennsylvania’s populous Lancaster County, and shared deep doubts about the integrity of U.S. election systems as millions of Americans have already voted. 

Some of his allies, notably former chief strategist Steve Bannon, have encouraged him to prematurely declare victory on Tuesday even if the race is too early to call. That's what Trump did four years ago, kicking off a process of fighting the election results that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

After speaking at a church service in Detroit on Sunday, Harris pushed back at Trump's characterizations of U.S. elections, telling reporters after the church service that Trump's comments are “meant to distract from the fact that we have and support free and fair elections in our country.” Those “good systems” were in place in 2020, Harris said, and “he lost.”

The vice president said she trusts the upcoming vote tally and urged voters, “in particular people who have not yet voted to not fall for this tactic, which I think includes, suggesting to people that if they vote, their vote won't matter.”

Harris' campaign said that Trump "is spending the closing days of his campaign angry and unhinged, lying about the election being stolen because he’s worried he will lose."

"The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth and will walk into the Oval Office focused on them – that’s Vice President Harris," said Harris campaign rapid response director Ammar Moussa.

Trump rattles off disputes with ‘enemies,’ including Michelle Obama 

At the Pennsylvania rally, Trump also called his former national security advisor John Bolton a “dumb son of a b---,” California Rep. Adam Schiff “an ugly guy, both inside and out,” and said he was going to “start having a little fun with Michelle” Obama after taking onus with her criticism of him on the trail.

“I've always treated his wife with great respect, but she came at me the other day,” Trump said, during an aside about President Barack Obama. “That's not nice of her to do. And I think we're going to start having a little fun with Michelle. I think we're gonna have a little fun with Michelle.”

Trump also criticized an unnamed news network that cuts off his speeches “if you even mention the fact that there's cheating and elections” — after criticizing friendly Fox News for airing Democratic criticisms of him earlier in the day — and called Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer “one of my enemies” after a Des Moines Register poll found Harris leading 47% to 44% in the typically red state.

“They just announced a fake poll. Hey, think of it right before the election that I'm three points down. I'm not down in Iowa,” Trump said.

Iowa, which went blue for Barack Obama twice, has tacked to the right in statewide elections since 2012 and was all but assumed to be out of play for Democrats. The poll, conducted for the Des Moines Register by the well-respected Selzer, surveyed 808 likely voters in the state, including those who already voted and those who said they definitely plan to vote, between Oct. 28 and Oct. 31. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. 

Previous Selzer polls, widely considered to be among the best at gauging the moods of Iowans, had Trump up four points over Harris in September and up 18 points over then-candidate President Joe Biden in June. 

“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” Selzer told the Register. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”

While it’s just one poll — an Emerson College poll of 800 likely voters over the weekend found Trump up nine points in Iowa — Selzer’s reputation as one of the best pollsters in the business contributed to Harris supporters circulating the poll widely on Saturday night as a good sign for the vice president’s campaign. If the poll is accurate, it could be indicative of a wider shift among the electorate in the Midwest in more typical swing states with greater numbers of Electoral College votes than Iowa’s six, former top Obama campaign and White House aide Dan Pfieffer speculated on social media on Saturday. 

Other polls released on Sunday showed a closer race in key swing states, including the top-ranked New York Times/Siena College poll which found Harris leading by one to three percentage points in Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Georgia and Trump up 49% to 45% in Arizona. The Times poll has the race tied in Pennsylvania and Michigan. An ABC News poll showed Harris leading 49% to 46% nationwide among likely voters, with the average across battleground states netting to the same. 

Polls from Morning Consult also found the race neck-and-neck in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 

Trump was scheduled to be in North Carolina on Sunday afternoon and Georgia in the evening. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.