Hours before the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday, former President Donald J. Trump traveled to Wisconsin and gave two rambling speeches laden with tangents, largely jettisoning any particular focus as he boasted about negotiating over the cost of a new Air Force One and lamented that a 1987 Vietnam War movie had not won an Academy Award.

In Waunakee, Wis., Mr. Trump opened his first campaign event of the day, which he acknowledged was meant to center on his manufacturing agenda, with a digressive response to Iran’s launching a missile attack against Israel, touching more on unrelated grievances about Vice President Kamala Harris than on the Middle East.

Then he traveled to Milwaukee for a meandering news conference in which he dismissed climate change, invoked the Great Depression, falsely insisted that Democrats cheat on elections and only barely touched on school choice, the issue that Mr. Trump’s campaign signaled would be his focus there.

In an event that lasted for an hour and a half, the former president jumped from topic to topic in shifts that were often hard to follow. Mr. Trump, who often criticizes President Biden for errors in his remarks, erroneously referred to Iran as Iraq. Later, he swapped in North Korea in a lament he has been making recently about Iran threatening his life.

Saying that the Secret Service had been burdened by the security needs of the recent U.N. General Assembly, Mr. Trump complained that officials “said that we have to guard the United Nations, which meant the president of North Korea, who is basically trying to kill me.” He added, “So they want to guard him, but they don’t want to guard me.”

Mr. Trump has previously boasted of his relationship with Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, but his campaign has said it has briefed about threats from Iran to assassinate him.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.