Donald Trump boasts he’s leading in early voting

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President Donald Trump boasted that he’s leading in early voting and said he was aiming for 12 years in office during his first of two campaign stops Saturday in Muskegon, Michigan. 

The president called his Democratic rival Joe Biden a ‘criminal’ and knocked around the state’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer – with his raucous crowd chanting lock him and her up. 

‘It just came out, we’re leading – early voting,’ the president told thousands of supporters packed outside the Muskegon County Airport Saturday evening. 

He told the crowd the Democrats needed shown a ‘thundering defeat at the ballot box.’ ‘And by the way, it seems to be happening,’ the president said.  

He admitted that he thought the election would have been in the bag had the coronavirus pandemic not happen. 

‘This thing wasn’t going to even be an election,’ he said and then referenced the ‘plague.’ ‘I didn’t have to come to Michigan,’ Trump added, explaining he would have won the state because manufacturing had come back. 

Upon arriving in Muskegon, Trump realized that the wind may do some damage to his hair. 

‘Get me a hat out of that plane,’ he said nodding toward Air Force One. 

He also joked that he was hat-less in a seat of Trump and winter hats. 

About a third of the thousands of people gathered at the airport venue were wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 

Aide John McEntee came onstage later and handed the president a red ‘Keep America Great’ hat. 

At the rally, Trump hammered Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for keeping the state locked down. 

‘You got to get your governor to open up your state, okay?’ he told the crowd of mainly maskless supporters.  

‘And get your schools open.’  

He also downplayed a recent right-wing militia plot to kidnap her. 

‘They’re saying she was threatened. And she blamed me. And our people were the ones who worked for her people,’ Trump told the crowd. 

In response a Trump fan shouted ‘liar!’ 

Soon a ‘lock her up!’ chant started up. 

At another point a supporter shouted ‘lock him up!’ that cue was directed at Democratic nominee Joe Biden. 

‘He’s a criminal. He’s committed crimes,’ Trump said. 

Later, he falsely accused Biden of firing a Ukrainian prosecutor who was looking into the company Biden’s son Hunter was advising. 

‘He makes ‘Crooked Hillary’ look like amateur hour,’ Trump said. 

As well as laying into Biden repeatedly, Trump launched an attack on Representative Ilhan Omar and appeared to mispronounce her name – one day after Republican Sen. David Perdue was labeled a ‘racist’ for appearing to intentionally missay the first name of Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. 

Trump blasted that Omar ‘doesn’t love our country too much, I don’t think.’ 

The president famously said of Omar in the past that she should ‘go back’ to the ‘totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.’  

Trump spooned Michiganders some of his trademark culture war fodder including that Democrats want to ‘blow up’ Mount Rushmore and ‘take down’ the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument. 

‘This is what we’re dealing with folks,’ Trump said to cheers. 

He mocked liberals who want to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, pointing out they probably lost the Italian-American vote. 

He sang the praises of his third Supreme Court pick, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who will likely get confirmed by the Republican-led Senate before Election Day. 

‘Amy is going to, she’s done amazing, it’s amazing to watch her,’ Trump gushed, calling her much more impressive than the ‘radical left senators.’ 

‘Unlike Joe she doesn’t need notes, it’s nice,’ Trump said, referring to his Democratic rival Joe Biden. 

Trump also poked fun at an aide and a crew member of vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ contracting the coronavirus.  ‘We wish her best,’ he said sarcastically. ‘She’s in seclusion,’ Trump also added.  

Out of caution, Harris cancelled all of her campaign travel until Monday, but she’s not technically under quarantine.   

As for his own battle with the virus, Trump joked about having droves of doctors surrounding him. 

‘And each one of them wanted to touch a different part of my body,’ Trump said to laughs.   

At one point, Trump erupted into his law and order rhetoric saying he will fund more police while calling the heavy-handed tactics of federal agents against protesters calling for racial justice ‘beautiful’. 

‘There’s something about that, when you watched everybody getting pushed around, there’s some very beautiful about it. I don’t care what anyone says. Not politically correct,’ he said. 

He also also boasted he has so much support from police groups that ‘he couldn’t read the list because it is so long.’

‘We even got the endorsement of New York law enforcement,’ he beamed. 

Trump went on to boast about having ‘super duper missiles’ adding that they were ‘all made in the US by the way’.

He also congratulated himself on the space efforts under his watch.

‘Some of them say I actually produced more than my promises,’ he said. 

Trump took aim at his Democratic rival and his approach to healthcare and education.  

‘I did more in 47 months that sleep Joe Biden did in 47 years,’ he claimed before saying ‘a vote for Republicans is a vote for the American dream’. 

He added: ‘Can you imagine if this sleepy guy gets in?’  

Trump flip-flopped between an uncharacteristic lack of confidence in his ability to secure a second term and a claim that he will overturn current rules that presidents can serve for just eight years, saying ’12 will be now the gold standard’. 

‘We’ll be here for four years, and then if we decide to go for an extra four, or eight, or something,’ he said, sending the crowd chanting ’12 more years!’ 

The president closed out the rally with what has become his signature move –  dad dancing to the YMCA. 

Overall Saturday’s trip will take him through four key swing states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, with just 17 days to go before the 2020 presidential election. 

He’ll also fly to California Sunday for an Orange County fundrasier at tech mogul Palmer Lucky’s estate. 

Since recovering from the coronavirus, Trump has held rally after rally, making his official return to the campaign trail Monday. 

He traveled to Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina, back to Florida for his Thursday NBC News night town hall, Georgia and then Florida again. 

 

Florida, as well as North Carolina, seem to hold more promise for Trump than the Midwest, which had traditionally been Democratic until he flipped Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016. 

But that hasn’t stopped the president from traveling there anyway.  

Trump first heads to Muskegon, Michigan, and then on to Janesville, Wisconsin for back-to-back rallies Saturday.

The president arrives in Wisconsin as the state broke a record for new positive coronavirus cases Friday. 

It’s the third time a new record has been hit in the state in a one-week span. 

Wisconsin also hit record highs in hospitalizations and deaths, according to The Associated Press. 

The state’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers publicly expressed worries about the president holding the Saturday rally in his state. 

‘Unless something extraordinary happens between now and then, he’ll be encouraging a super-spreader event,’ Evers said. ‘As governor or the state of Wisconsin I sure would ask him personally, have people wear a mask, have them be physically distant.’ 

Despite Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Barron Trump, Hope Hicks, Stephen Miller and a slew of other Trump aides and Congressional allies contracting the coronavirus since late September, the president hasn’t changed his tune on the virus, nor implemented additional safety measures at his rallies. 

He has, however, tossed out branded masks to his crowds.