One last push: Joe Biden and Donald Trump hit the road for the last time

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President Donald Trump battled problems with his microphone at his fourth rally of the day on Monday.

The sound on his microphone was so low it was nearly impossible to hear him speak when he addressed supporters in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

‘Turn it up. Turn it up,’ the crowd of a few thousand shouted.

‘Can you hear me?’ the president asked as the crowd yelled back ‘no.’

Trump seemed relieved the microphone was the reason for the lack of crowd reaction to his speech. ‘I thought they didn’t like me,’ he said.

A staffer came on stage and gave the president a handheld microphone.

‘I always said I want the perfect mic,’ Trump said of it.

‘We’re supposed to pay these people, right?’ the president joked of the mishap. ‘I won’t pay the bill of the company that does this crazy microphone, and they’ll do a story, ‘Trump is a horrible human being, he doesn’t pay a bill.’ No, I don’t like to pay bills when people do a bad job.’ But he then agrees he will because it’s a Kenosha-based company. 

Additionally, all of President Trump’s adult children were with him in Kenosha, watching him speak from the side of the stage: Donald Trump Jr and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle, Eric Trump and Lara Trump, Tiffany Trump, and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. 

The president brought them on stage at various points in the night. 

‘They’re all campaigning hard,’ he said of his kids. ‘I have a great family. They’re working so hard.’

Ivanka encouraged people to get out of vote. 

‘He never forgot who he is fighting for – you,’ she said. ‘Washington has not changed Donald Trump. Donald Trump has changed Washington. It’s true. It’s true. And there’s more to come.’ 

‘Thank you sweetheart,’ Trump told his oldest daughter. 

The president used the microphone incident to tout his health, referring to an incident from this summer, when his hand shook during a commencement speech at West Point when he tried to hold a glass of water. He also said he drank water that way so he wouldn’t spill it on his tie as the tie was expensive.

‘So now by holding a mic all night long like this you’re gonna say well there’s nothing wrong with that right hand,’ he said.

But he added in an attack on rival Joe Biden: ‘Some day I may – like Joe.’

The president sounded tired at his last stop and his frustration with the audio situation showed.

‘This is the worst mic I’ve ever used in my life,’ he said of his hand held. ‘Can you actually hear me?’

‘I have a microphone that was obviously meant for congressmen and senators. Not for presidents,’ he said of it. 

At his fourth rally, Trump admitted he’s closing his 2020 campaign like his last successful presidential bid because he’s a little bit ‘superstitious.’

The president will hold the last rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the same place he closed out his 2016 campaign.

‘I’m a little bit superstitious,’ he told supporters at in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It was his fourth rally of the day and last one before he left for the Michigan event.

‘Could Joe really win,’ he mused. 

He pointed out it was ‘there four years ago’ that he concluded his victorious presidential campaign. ‘We’ll do it the same way,’ he said.

Trump kept his focus on election night – the evening in 2016 that he beat Hillary Clinton in a shocking upset when polls showed her leading in the race.

He recounted the story of how state after state was called for him instead of Clinton.

‘Was there ever as anything as big?’ he said of the evening.

Trump stopped in Michigan earlier Sunday before he held his closing event and made his appeal for a second term to Michigan voters with a beautiful sunset behind him.

‘I’m fighting to survive,’ he told the crowd at a chilly rally in Traverse City on Monday night, his third of the day. 

The president wasted no time asking for the state to vote for him, as it did in 2016, and knocking Democratic rival Joe Biden, comparing him to his last opponent Hillary Clinton.

‘Now we have a guy that makes Hillary look like a baby,’ he said of Biden.

‘He is a very weak fragile – he is a fragile person and he’s very agitated,’ he said of his rival. ‘And now he comes out with the aviator glasses. He wants to look like Tom Cruise from a long time ago.’

Trump won the state, which is part of a Midwest group known as the ‘blue wall’, in a victory that shocked Democrats four years ago. He also took Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – the three states hadn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate in more than 20 years.

He is looking to repeat that sweep in Tuesday’s election.

‘We want the same results we had four years ago in Michigan,’ he told supporters. ‘If we win Michigan, it’s over. You are going to be watching some very good television tomorrow night.’ 

Vice President Mike Pence joined the president to wave the crowd in front of the setting sun.

‘Look at the sky. Let’s just look at the sky for a little while,’ Trump said as he gazed upward.  

The president claimed he brought high ratings for the media and that would end if Biden won. He predicted The New York Times would close if Biden wins. He also said ratings for the basketball championship are down because people are watching his rallies instead.

‘The ratings are bad because so many people are watching this,’ he said.

He attacked Biden’s policies repeatedly, claiming they would hurt Michigan’s auto industry.

‘A vote for Biden is a vote to eradicate the state’s auto industry,’ he warned as the crowd booed.

Biden and former President Barack Obama held their first appearance of the 2020 campaign in Michigan on Friday, where they reminded voters they saved the auto industry with a bailout during the recession.

Trump repeated his argument Biden is a ‘corrupt’ politician and told the crowd: ‘Biden is the living embodiment of the decrepit and duplicit political system – they got rich while bleeding America dry.’

‘Drain the swamp,’ the crowed shouted.

‘They’re going to be knocked off very soon,’ Trump said.

‘Joe Biden is bought and paid for by big tech big media and powerful special interests,’ he said. ‘He will always do whatever they want.’

He added: ‘I definitely don’t do what they want.’

He also complained about his treatment in Washington, specifically mentioning the impeachment trial and Senator Mitt Romney’s vote to convict him on one count. Trump was cleared of both charges by the entire Senate.

The crowd booed at Romney’s name. Romney’s father was governor of Michigan and his niece, Ronna Romney McDaniel, is from the state and serves as chairwoman Republican National Committee.

Trump praised McDaniel’s work.

‘She has done a fantastic job,’ he said.

She rallied the crowd to vote.

‘Lightening struck four years and we blew the minds of the media and the world when we delivered Michigan for President Trump. Are you ready for lightening to strike twice,’ she said.

Earlier Monday, Trump stopped in Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton on Monday to attack his Democratic rival’s energy policy, warning it would be an ‘economic disaster’ to Pennsylvania.

Trump repeated his claim Biden will ban fracking, which Biden has said he will not do. Fracking is a major industry in the state.

‘Biden’s plan to cut fracking will be an economic disaster for Pennsylvania,’ he said as the crowd of several thousand booed.

He and Biden are battling it out for Pennsylvania – where Biden was born and Trump went to college. The state’s 20 electoral votes will help decide the winner of the White House. Polls show Biden with a slight lead but Trump became the first Republican in more than 20 years to win it when he took the state in 2016.

‘He left Scranton,’ Trump told the crowd of Biden. ‘This guy is a stone cold phony.’

Biden, in speeches on the campaign trail, tells of how he was born in Scranton but his family had to leave the area when he was young because his father lost his job.

‘Joe has no clue,’ Trump said. ‘Joe’s not calling the shots. And I guarantee he won’t be calling them for very long.’

The president has criticized Biden’s mental and physical abilities. Biden is three years older than him.  

All four members of Team Biden – Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff – are barnstorming Pennsylvania on Monday. Biden will hold a rally with Lady Gaga. John Legend will appear with Kamala Harris.

Trump knocked Biden for campaigning with Lady Gaga, who also cut an ad urging people to vote for the Democratic nominee.

‘He’s got Lady Gaga,’ he said as the crowd boos.

‘I could tell you stories about Lady Gaga,’ he said and randomly added: ‘And Jon Bon Jovi – every time I see him he kisses my ass.’

He also said he felt bad for LeBron James because basketball ratings were so bad and added: ‘I didn’t watch one shot. I get bored.’ 

Trump praised the thousands who came out to see him on a cold, windy day. 

‘This does not look like a second place finish,’ Trump told his second campaign rally of the day at the Scranton-Wilkes Barre airport.

‘I think we are going to have a tremendous day tomorrow,’ he said. ‘There is much more enthusiasm for this campaign than there was four years ago.’

When the crowd shouted ‘we love you,’ Trump asked them jokingly not to make him cry, saying the media would claim he broke down: ‘I dunno, hey maybe that would lift you up, right? You pick up 10 points for crying. I still don’t wanna do it.’

‘What a crowd. I have three more of these to do you want me to stay with you all day,’ Trump told them. He has three more rallies scheduled for Monday. 

He then criticized – as he has many times – a Supreme Court decision to allow the state to extend its deadline to count mail-in ballots for three days after the election. The 2016 contest in the state was extremely close – Trump won Pennsylvania by less than 1 point – so the ruling was a blow to him and a boost to Democrats.

Trump said the ruling ‘made a dangerous situation’ and a ‘very bad situation for the state.’

He said his team would be keeping an eye on the vote count and on Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

‘Please don’t cheat governor. Please don’t cheat. Because we’re all watching. We have a lot of eyes on the governor and his friends,’ he said. On Sunday, Trump said his campaign was ready to send in lawyers on election night to dispute ballots.

The president rehashed complaints he has regularly made on the campaign trail – about polls (which show him trailing Biden), about the media (he thinks they don’t cover Biden hard enough) and the tech industry.

‘I know what trending is better than anyone in the world. I’ve been trending my whole life,’ he bragged.

He also gave a shout out to Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party in England, who was at the event.

Trump made direct appeals to the voters in the state – particularly suburban women, a group that helped him win the White House but slowly moved away from him, helping Democrats win the House in the 2018 midterm.

‘Love me women of the suburbs. Love me,’ the president said.

Trump started off his final day of campaigning with an old litany of complaints – against the polls, against Biden, against the media, against his impeachment trial, and even against his 2016 foe Hillary Clinton.

The president is holding five rallies in four states ahead of Election Day to make his closing argument to voters for a second term.

‘Get out and vote that’s all I ask,’ he told the crowd at his first of five rallies.

‘We have five of these today – five. We have some big ones,’ he told his first stop in Fayettsville, North Carolina, of his schedule for the day.

His remarks were a recant of all the wrongs he believes has been done against him while he’s been in the White House. The president has previously complained about a ‘deep state’ conspiracy in the government working against him.

‘I’ve been under investigation since before I became president. I have to be tough,’ he said. ‘I have a cloud hanging over my head whether I like it or not.’

And he pushed back against those who said he’s nasty in his online posts, saying he has to defend himself.

‘He is very very nasty. His twitter,’ he said of what his critics say. ‘If I didn’t have social media I wouldn’t be here. I have to be able to defend myself.’

He slammed Biden’s mental abilities. Trump has called himself a ‘very stable genius’ and, during the debates, challenged Biden to take a cognitive test, which does not measure intelligence.

‘He is not mentally equipped to be your president,’ he said of Biden. ‘He is not a nice person, he was never a smart person, he is a touchy feely person.’ 

The president,wearing a red ‘MAGA’ hat against the windy day, also went on an extended rant against the polls as the final ones out ahead of the election show Biden in the lead.

‘I hope I haven’t bored you,’ he told the crowd in North Carolina when he finished. ‘I thought it was interesting. To me it was interesting.’

He called Biden ‘corrupt’ while arguing he is a ‘not a politician’ – repeating the outsider argument that won him the White House in 2016.

‘We will dethrone the failed political class,’ he vowed as the crowd cheered. 

The president again called for the results of Tuesday’s contest to be announced that night. The winner may not be known for a few days because of the high number of people using mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Supreme Court has upheld extended deadlines to count ballots in several states – a blow to the Republican Party.

‘I’m just so tired of some of these horrible political decisions that are being mad,’ he said of the Supreme Court, where he has appointed three justices. He said the court’s decision on extended deadlines ‘puts our country in danger.’

But most of his remarks were a grievance list, featuring complaints and criticism the president had made for the past four years.

Trump repeated his complaint about ‘spying’ against his last presidential campaign – referring to an FBI counter intelligence investigation into whether Russia was trying to influence the election.

He also complained Joe and Hunter Biden don’t get enough critical media coverage and brought up Hillary Clinton’s emails.

‘Lock him up’ and ‘lock her up’ the crowd yelled back.

‘If I’ve done one thing it’s expose the dishonesty in the media,’ the president announced.

He criticized the media for not covering items found on a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and showing emails between him and Ukrainian officials dated back to when his father was vice president. There have been concerns the information has not been verified and could have come from Russia.

‘They refuse to write a story,’ Trump said of the media and Hunter’s emails. ‘You can’t have a scandal if nobody writes about it.’

‘You have the fake news not writing about and big tech not letting it posted,’ he said, referring to Twitter freezing the account of the New York Post for posting a link to its unverified story on Hunter’s alleged laptop. The laptop was discovered at a repair store in Delaware. A copy of its hard drive was given to the newspaper by Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer.

‘We don’t have freedom of the press. We haven’t had for a long time. We have suppression of the press,’ the president said and the complimented himself: ‘What beautiful words.’

He continued on that thread: ‘It’s the exact opposite of freedom of press.’

He then complained about his treatment.

‘They impeached me because I made a perfect phone call,’ he continued, going off an extended rant about ‘Crazy’ Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic impeachment trial.

He called special counsel Robert Mueller investigation a ‘fake scam.’ Muller concluded there was no collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign. He was unable to conclude if President Trump tried to impede his investigation.

But his supporters cheered him off as he listed the wrongs against him.

‘We love Trump, we love Trump,’ they chanted.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden started their final push for votes Monday with the Democrat ahead in the polls but Republicans believing that they can pull off a repeat of their shock 2016 victory.

Biden boarded his jet at New Castle Airport in Delaware saying ‘one more day’ as he headed for Cleveland, Ohio, then Pennsylvania, while in Florida, Trump boarded Air Force One to go to a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Trump is holding a total of five rallies, ending as he did in 2016 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, before returning to the White House.

Republicans believe the high-tempo attack which sees stops in Avoca, Pennsylvania, Traverse City, Michigan, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, before the final event could help Trump secure a second term.

He left Florida after flying in late Sunday night for the fifth of five rallies that day.

Trump’s schedule shows how his strategy is focused on repeating exactly the 2016 make-up of his victory – but last-minute polls put him far behind in the mid-western states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin which he has focused his energy on. 

Biden was spending his day in Pennsylvania, showing how the road to the White House now runs through it for both men, with a stop in Pittsburgh and a drive-in rally there with Lady Gaga.

 Trump had finished his five state, five rally tour Sunday night landing in Miami, Florida just after 11.30pm – where it was a balmy 79 degrees – and dad-dancing offstage to ‘YMCA’ at 10 ’til 1am.

‘Two days from now we’re going to win my home state of Florida!’ Trump told the cheering crowd. ‘You know who else thinks we’re going to win, the Democrats, think we’re going to win,’ he said about Tuesday’s presidential race.

Trump started his day at a rally in Michigan, where it was cold, sleeting and snowing. He moved on to Iowa where it was cold and windy. His shortest rally, in North Carolina, had better weather. And in Georgia the wind had picked up again.

‘I’ve been doing this since early in the morning – only for you,’ Trump said.

In Miami, he was hoarse and spoke at a lower volume than usual, but promised he would keep things going.

‘This is the last one of the day, so we can stay all night,’ he told the crowd after midnight.

He talked for 62 minutes.

‘Tomorrow I have five more. Five more. Five more and let’s crash,’ Trump said. ‘I don’t know if I can crash. Tuesday is going to be a very exciting day.’

While polls have consistently shown Trump tied or behind in key swing states the president said he didn’t really need to make his final two stops of the night – in Georgia and then in Florida.

‘In fact they said, ‘Sir, you don’t have to go to Georgia,’ they said a couple of days ago. I said, ‘Wait a minute, people are waiting for two and a half days, I’m not going to cancel on Georgia,’ Trump said.

‘I guess I could have cancelled you too,’ he told Floridians. ‘But nobody would have the courage to cancel you.’

At his final rally, he hinted that he might fire Dr. Anthony Fauci.

‘Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election,’ Trump said, responding to a ‘Fire Fauci!’ chant that had broken out.

At another point in the rally, he commented on Biden’s trim figure.

‘His legs have gotten very thin,’ Trump said.

To keep the crowds pumped up for Trump’s late night arrival, nearly every prominent Republican from the Sunshine State gave a speech, including Sen. Marco Rubio – a Trump 2016 primary rival – Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis had to pause his remarks to call for a medic – as the heat was making supporters feel ill.

Rubio seemingly signaled support for the Texas MAGA convoy that tried to run a Biden-Harris campaign bus off the road.

‘I saw yesterday a video of these people in Texas. Did you see it?’ he asked the crowd. ‘All the cars on the road. We love what they did.’

‘But here’s the thing they don’t know. We do that in Florida every day,’ he said to laughs. 

 

Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, referred to the Democratic vice presidential nominee as ‘Commie’ Kamala Harris and finished her speech with her trademark, ‘the best is yet to come!’ – which got her mocked at the Republican National Convention.

A Latin band entertained the crowd – a departure from Trump’s Village People-heavy campaign playlist

Earlier Sunday evening, Trump told a rally in Rome, Georgia, that he was running for president as a ‘proud American’ in comparison to his rival Joe Biden, who’s running as a Democrat.

‘Biden says he’s running as a proud Democrat,’ Trump told his supporters at his fourth rally of the day. ‘I’m running as a proud American.’

Trump was on his fourth of five stops in five states with only two days to go before the presidential election.

He warned election officials in Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania that he and the Republican Party were watching the results from the presidential race.

He called for the results to be given the night of November 3, instead of waiting to count incoming mail-in ballots.

‘Results from Florida, we’re looking at North Carolina we are looking at, Pennsylvania, we are looking at,’ he told his fourth rally of the day in Rome, Georgia.

He put down the idea of waiting for ballots that were postmarked by Election Day, saying if people wanted more time they should have voted earlier. 

‘Everything has to be counted by the evening, waiting around six days, nine day, giving them more time. If they want more time let them put their ballots in early,’ he said.

‘Bad things happen in places like Pennsylvania and Nevada,’ he added, naming two states that have pushed for mail-in voting and extended deadlines to count ballots.

Trump and the Republican Party have been suing some of these states over the extended deadlines. But they lost a big case when the Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s extended deadline – that will allow votes to be counted for three days after the election – could stand. It was a victory for Democrats and infuriated the president.

‘That’s a terrible ruling for our country,’ he told his rally.

Earlier he warned his team has lawyers on stand by to go in on election night to dispute ballots.

‘We’re going in the night of – as soon as the election is over – we’re going in with our lawyers,’ he told reporters in North Carolina ahead of his third rally of the day.

More than 91 million Americans have requested mail-in ballots, according to the Election Project, which tracks early voting. And more than 59 million have already been returned.

Trump is on day one of a two-day, seven state, five rally campaign swing as he fights for a second term.

‘I’ve done four of these. I’m going to Florida for another of these,’ he said at his Georgia event. Democrats see Georgia as a pick up opportunity from Republicans. They are sending in former President Barack Obama to campaign for Biden in the state on Monday.

President Trump mentioned Republican candidates Kelly Loeffler and Doug Collins and their competitive Senate race at his Georgia rally as both stood in the audience.

‘I’m stuck right in the middle,’ he said of the special election race, which has divided Republicans, including the president. ‘Whoever it is, you have two winners. You have two winners.’

He also praised Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican QAnon conspiracy theorist running for Congress in the state, saying she has his ‘full and complete endorsement.’

Meanwhile, President Trump has faced a tough day of weather on his first outing.

He told the crowd in Georgia he’s been wearing a ‘MAGA’ hat all day because the wind has ruined his hair.

Trump, known for his mane of strawberry blond locks, has sported a red ‘Make America Great Again’ hat at every rally on Sunday.

‘I wanted to show you how great my hair was. I was having a great hair day,’ he told cheering supporters at his fourth rally of the day in Rome, Georgia. 

‘The wind. Everyone else has a hat on,’ he explained. ‘Is it windy enough?’

The wind was blowing pretty hard in Georgia too.

Trump started his day at a rally in Michigan, where it was cold, sleeting and snowing. He moved on to Iowa where it was cold and windy.

He then moved on to Hickory, North Carolina, where he brought the Reverend Franklin Graham, the son of the late Billy Graham, on stage to pray for him in North Carolina in his shortest campaign rally of the day.

‘I would like to take a moment and pray for this man,’ Graham said, giving a short prayer as the president and his supporters bowed their heads.

Trump praised the crowd of thousands who came out to see him.

‘This is a very big crowd – look at this,’ he said.

But the president spoke for less than 45 minutes, when his rallies typically go on for more than hour. On his day of five rallies in five states, the president was running about 30 minutes behind schedule when he arrived in North Carolina.

For a short rally, Trump got in his greatest hits – praising his economic record, attacking rival Joe Biden as a puppet of the left, and some complaints about the weather. 

‘We had a couple of cold stops today,’ he said of his earlier events in Iowa and Michigan.

And then he brought back one of his oldies but a crowd pleaser: He read lyrics from the song ‘the snake.’

The story is about a ‘tenderhearted woman’ who finds a half-frozen snake on a path and rescues it. She helps it, nurses it back to health – only to be bitten and die. In Trump’s reading, the tale is a parable for the dangers of lax immigration policies.

‘You know your bite is poisonous and now I’m going to die,’ Trump read dramatically as the crowd roared in approval.

The president read it often when he campaigned for Republicans in 2018 but it’s the first time he used it in the presidential race.

Earlier today, Trump battled the weather at his second rally in his five-rally swing Sunday, fighting the bitter Iowa wind. 

‘I’m standing up and this is a hell of a lot of wind,’ he told the cheering crowd on Sunday.

‘It’s lucky you have a president that doesn’t need a teleprompter because these things are useless,’ he added.

And he got in a hit at rival Joe Biden, saying he wouldn’t be able to speak under such circumstances. 

‘That wind, I don’t know about you, but that wind is hitting me hard,’ he said.

And then he pointed to daughter Ivanka Trump, who was there watching the rally. ‘My poor daughter is standing there freezing,’ he said. It was 37 degrees in Dubuque.

‘Sleepy Joe would be lost,’ he said using the moniker he’s given Biden. Both candidates use teleprompters in their speeches but Trump often goes off script while Biden does not. Trump also makes fun of Biden’s mental abilities, including showing videos at his rallies of Biden stuttering. 

The president called Ivanka Trump, his former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and adviser Hope Hicks to the stage to address the crowd.

‘The great Hope Hicks. Do you know Hope? She’s become very famous,’ he said.

Hicks spoke briefly and Trump noted she doesn’t like public speaking. 

‘Hi, how much do we love our president? Are you guys going to vote on Tuesday?,’ Hicks said as the crowd cheered and chanted ‘Trump.’ We love you Iowa. Thank you.’ 

Trump hugged Sanders who said: ‘He’s had an amazing four years. As a mom of three young kids, there’s nobody I trust more to build their future, and protect our great country in President Donald Trump.’

And he brought Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst to the stage to speak.  Ernst is in a closely-contested re-election race.

Trump faced snow at his first rally of the day when he campaigned in Michigan. In Iowa, he faced another cold day but large crowd, who cheered him on as attacked Biden for his energy and tax policies.

‘If Biden gets in you can forget about ethanol,’ Trump warned, getting in a mention of  one of Iowa’s biggest industries.

‘Biden has vowed to abolish the oil industry and this would be a death sentence to ethanol,’ he added.   

The race in Iowa is essentially tied, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average of the state. 

The president also complained that the result of the election should be known on election day. In 2016, it was not known until the day after the election and is expected to take even longer this year because so many Americans are voting by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic.

‘We should know the result of the election on Nov. 3. The evening of Nov. 3. That’s the way it’s been and that’s the way it should be. What’s going on in this country? What’s going on?,’ he said. 

‘We have to be careful of cheating,’ he said of this year’s vote. 

More than 91 million mail-in ballots have been requested, according to the Election Project, and over 59 million have been returned.

Trump, who is trailing Biden fundraising, said he could be the ‘greatest political fundraiser.’ 

‘I would be the greatest political fundraiser in the history of the world – I could raise a billion in two days. Well give me three days,’ he said.

‘You could raise a lot of money but you can only air so many commercials,’ he added.

Trump kicked off his five-rally day in snowy Michigan where it was so cold he joked people should wear face masks.

‘Today you should wear them anyway,’ Trump said his remarks. 

The president has been reluctant to wear a face covering and his campaign said supporters are free to wear them or not at events.

But several people in Michigan had their face covered with either a scarf or a face mask – including many red ‘MAGA’ ones. The weather was 41 degrees with an even colder wind chill of 26 degrees. 

Snow flakes fell as the president spoke under the cover of a roof. Supporters wrapped themselves in blankets and hopped up and down to keep warm.

‘This is a hell of a day. You guys must love Trump,’ the president said in one of his many references to the blustery day. 

‘That wind is coming right into my face,’ he said as the cold wind blew through the muddy field where he spoke.As the crowd shouted ‘we love you,’ he replied back: ‘I love you too. If I didn’t it wouldn’t be standing here because it’s freezing.’

Ivanka Trump introduced her father, comparing him to Winston Churchill in her short remarks. ‘Winston Churchill said, ‘It was the nation that had the lion’s heart, I just had the luck to give it the roar,’ she said. 

‘How much does this remind you of our president and this movement?’He gave us roar,’ she added. 

The president joked about how short a time she spoke for.

‘We had the luck of having Ivanka here and I’ll tell you it’s the shortest introduction she’s ever given me and now I understand why,’ he said in reference to the weather.

Trump turned most of the sections into his speech into a commentary on the weather – even when he was criticizing his Democratic rivals’ immigration policy.

‘They want to allow virtually unlimited immigration to our country and unlimited access to our country,’ he said of the Biden/Harris ticket.He then joked it was so cold refugees wouldn’t want to come. 

‘It’s freezing up here. I want to go back to Syria,’ he said, roaring with laughter at his own joke.

The president also spent much of his remarks bragging about his economic record.

‘I gave you a lot of auto plants,’ he told the crowd. ‘The auto business is coming back.’

In fact there has been one major assembly plant announced, by Fiat Chrysler in Detroit, which will open next year, and two smaller facilities which will employ under 450 people each. 

He warned with Joe Biden as president: ‘You will have a depression.’ He warned of higher gas prices and higher taxes.

‘Under my leadership our economy is now growing at the fastest rate ever recorded,’ Trump claimed even as the economy struggles to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

But his thoughts always returned to the weather. ‘This is a true testament. I love the people of Michigan. It’s worth it. It’s worth it,’ he said. 

Before his final campaign swing started – two days, seven states, 10 – rallies, Trump had a special message for Michigan, which is his first stop of the day.

He touted his economic record there after Barack Obama trashed him during campaign stops for Biden in Flint and Detroit on Saturday.

‘When I originally became your all time favorite President, the Great State of Michigan was hemorrhaging car companies and jobs. Plants were closing and moving to Mexico, and other places. No new plants for decades. I stopped the moves, & now many plants are and have been built,’ Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday morning before he left Washington D.C. 

‘The place was a mess and would have lost much more business if I hadn’t come along. Many new plants are starting. Foreign countries and companies now treat the USA, and Michigan, with respect. Big jobs plans. Please remember this when you go to cast your very important vote!,’ he added.   

In a blistering denouncement of his successor on Saturday, Obama criticized Trump’s job record to Michigan voters during a stop in the critical battleground state. 

He pointed out he and Biden fought for the auto industry – which is huge in Michigan – during the economic recession. He said Trump has lost manufacturing jobs.

‘The economic damage inflicted by botching the pandemic response means he’ll be the only president since Herbert Hoover, to actually lose jobs,’ Obama said of Trump. ‘Herbert Hoover. That’s a long time ago.’

Biden leads by seven points in Michigan according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls in the state. Trump was in Michigan on Friday while Biden was there with Obama on Saturday. 

Trump will end his presidential campaign with a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Monday night – the same place he ended his successful 2016 run.

Early voting has begun in the state and more than 2.5 million have already cast their ballot, according to the Election Project, which tracks early voting.

The president is fighting hard to win the state and not afraid to butt heads with his political opposition.

He attacked the former Republican governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, in a tweet late last week after Snyder said he voted for Biden.

‘Failed RINO former Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan was a disaster with respect to the Flint Water CATASTROPHE, and a very bad Governor overall. He hurt so many people with his gross incompetence,’ Trump wrote Thursday evening.

On Saturday, when Obama and Biden were campaigning in the state and criticizing Trump’s record, the president blamed them for the situation in Flint.

He tweeted angrily from Air Force One, saying the notorious water contamination happened ‘on their watch.’ 

In fact the lead poisoning happened when an emergency city manager appointed by Snyder switched the city’s water supply to water from Lake Huron, introducing lead into the supply at dangerous levels. 

Snyder apologized repeatedly for the crisis. 

The president has also battled with the current governor – Democrat Gretchen Whitmer – over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, new COVID cases and deaths are on the rise in Michigan.

On Saturday, Michigan’s 7-day moving average for daily cases was 2,879 – the highest it has ever been. Also on Saturday, Michigan reported a single-day record of new confirmed coronavirus cases: 3,792.

Trump will spend Sunday in Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. He’ll sleep at his golf club in Doral before Monday’s swing to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Biden will spend Sunday and Monday in Pennsylvania. Trump held four rallies in that state on Saturday. He’ll have daughters Ivanka and Tiffany there on Sunday. 

Both campaigns are spending most of the final few days of the campaign in the Midwest. 

Trump will begin Sunday in Washington, Michigan, where is trying to replicate his 2016 win when the states there put him in the White House. 

Democrats are trying to rebuild their ‘blue wall’ – a set of Midwest states that were reliably in their corner until Trump won them four years ago.

The Trump victory there left the party shocked and stunned – a situation they do not want to revisit this year.  

Those states include Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Trump won them by a point or two, leaving Democrats hopeful that Biden – long a champion of the blue-collar worker – can win them back.  

Biden brought former President Barack Obama to him in Michigan on Saturday where the two made their first joint campaign appearance together with rallies in Flint and Detroit. 

‘Guess what Mr President, I’m coming for you,’ Biden said to cheers from the crowd in Detroit.

Obama made it clear what was at stake on November 3.

‘Three days Detroit. Three days until the most important election of our lifetimes,’ he said. ‘And that includes mine, which was pretty important.’  

Trump will be back in Michigan for two rallies on Monday. Ivanka Trump will also campaign there on Monday.

After his Michigan stop on Sunday, Trump moves to Iowa – a state he won by 10 points in 2016 and wants to keep in his corner.

From there he’ll bounce to Hickory, North Carolina, before moving down to Rome, Georgia and ending the night in Miami. 

Trump’s niece Mary warns of ‘authoritarian state’ if ‘vile’ President is reelected

Mary Trump warned Sunday that if her uncle, President Donald Trump – who she called ‘vile’ – is reelected on Tuesday, the U.S. could be at risk of becoming an ‘authoritarian state.’

According to a ‘panel of experts’ the president’s niece said she put together last week, ‘The message is… Donald has [apparently] done everything in his power to dismantle every institution that comprises the U.S.’

‘We’re looking at an authoritarian state if we allow him to continue unimpeded,’ she told MSNBC’s Joy Reid during an interview on ‘AM Joy’ Sunday morning.

At the same time Mary joined Reid for an interview Sunday, just two days before Election Day, Trump was arriving at his first of five rallies on Sunday in snowy Michigan.

‘As if my blood pressure weren’t high enough,’ Mary said. ‘He is vile. He is actively calling on American citizens to commit violence against other American citizens simply for voicing their opinions.’

‘This is so dangerous,’ she added. ‘He is doing the same thing with his armed supporters to go watch the polls. And we know which neighborhoods he’s sending these people to. So, it can’t be clearer what he is doing. Please understand that he will allow violence to be committed in his name in order to take this election because he knows he can’t win it legitimately.’

Trump has called on his supporters to survey polling locations as he warns Democrats are trying to steal the election.

White House slams Dr. Fauci for ‘playing politics’ after he said he has ‘real problems’ with Trump’s favored Dr. Atlas who ‘doesn’t know what he is talking about’ – and warning the nation is ‘in for a whole lot of hurt’

The White House is said to be irked by the country’s leading infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci having given a wide-ranging interview in which he ‘appears to play politics’ on the coronavirus outbreak just days before the general election.

Despite having not been part of any recent White House press conferences on the pandemic for many months nor having spoken to President Trump directly since the start of October, the doctor has laid bare his frustrations with how the current administration is dealing with the disease. 

The president now favors hearing from a doctor with a different point of view – Dr. Scott Atlas. 

‘We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,’ Fauci said. ‘All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.’ 

Fauci noted in the interview with the Washington Post that Joe Biden’s campaign ‘is taking it seriously from a public health perspective’, whereas Trump is ‘looking at it from a different perspective. Namely that of the economy and reopening the country.’ 

President Trump has repeated asserted that the country is ’rounding the turn’ on the virus but Fauci disagrees saying the country may soon surpass 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day in what is likely to be a long and potentially deadly winter.

On Friday, 98,000 new infections were recorded across the country with 1,000 deaths a day reported on both Wednesday and Thursday. More than 230,000 have died since the start of the pandemic

Infections are currently climbing in 42 states while the president is spending the closing days of his re-election campaign criticizing public officials and medical professionals who are trying to beat it back.

Trump falsely said doctors earn more money when their patients die of the disease, building on his past criticism of medical experts such as Fauci. 

At one point, Dr. Fauci was the face of the coronavirus response task force team who would host daily briefings on the outbreak.

He has since described the response as cases surge as ‘disjointed’, with the White House solely focussed on getting a vaccine as quickly as possible, despite it not necessarily being the ‘silver bullet’ that completely ends the pandemic.

Fauci revealed to the Post the coronavirus task force meets far less frequently now and has a more limited influence on the president’s decisions as he becomes more focused on reopening the country. 

‘Right now, the public health aspect of the task force has diminished greatly,’ he said. 

At one point during the Post interview, Fauci checked himself and said that he needed to exercise caution in how he was speaking else he could be blocked conducting interviews in the future.  

‘The last time I spoke to the president was not about any policy; it was when he was recovering in Walter Reed, he called me up,’ Fauci said while revealing that the president has a new favorite – Scott Atlas.  

Atlas, a neuroradiologist, is now Trump’s favored adviser on the pandemic because he offered guidance that more closely align with Trump’s own views which is to reopen the country and let the virus spread among young healthy people.

It is not something that Fauci can agree on.

‘I have real problems with that guy,’ Fauci said. ‘He’s a smart guy who’s talking about things that I believe he doesn’t have any real insight or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that when you dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn’t make any sense.’

There is clearly no love lost between Fauci and Atlas either. On Saturday night Atlas posted a tweet mocking Fauci taking aim at him for giving an interview to the Post.

‘#Insecurity #EmbarrassingHimself #Exposed #CantThrowABall #NoTimeForPolitics,’ he tweeted.

Fauci noted that he has a lot of respect for chief of staff Mark Meadows who was direct and forthright in his answers who said on CNN last weekend that the administration was not going to control the pandemic. 

‘I tip my hat to him for admitting the strategy,’ he said. ‘He is straightforward in telling you what’s on his mind. I commend him for that.’ 

White House spokesman Judd Deere did not take kindly to any of Fauci’s remarks to the Post. 

‘Fauci ‘knows the risks from the coronavirus today are dramatically lower than they were only a few months ago,’ Deere said.

‘It’s unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force and someone who has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics,’ he continued. 

‘As a member of the Task Force, Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy, but he’s not done that, instead choosing to criticize the President in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the President’s opponent — exactly what the American people have come to expect from The Swamp.’

The president has recently taken to mocking Fauci and at a recent rally essentially called him an idiot.

‘People are tired of hearing Fauci and these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong,’ Trump said as he recounted how the doctor one said face masks were not necessary before flipping on the issue. 

Nevertheless, the White House does not seem to want to make any spat with Fauci public given his overall popularity. 

However, the doctor is not revered among Trump supporters and Fauci has also told how he has experienced a rise in harassment and threats from members of the public. 

A low point between Fauci and Trump was reached last month after the Trump campaign appeared to take the doctor’s works out of context for a political advert that appeared to show him praising the president’s response to the pandemic. 

The Trump campaign used his image without his permission and twisted his words to make it seem like he was endorsing the president. 

‘Together we rose to meet the challenge, protecting our seniors, getting them life-saving drugs in record time, sparing no expense. President Trump tackled the virus head on, as leaders should.’ Fauci is then shown saying: ‘I can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more,’ creating the impression he is referring to Trump.  

Fauci said his words were taken out of context from a statement he made in March.  

‘In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate,’ he said in a statement.

‘The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials.’  

The 79-year-old doctor has frequently had to walk a fine line in attempting to clarify – or correct – the president’s often incautious assertions about the disease or the treatments and vaccines being developed against Covid-19.

Fauci has at times aroused Trump’s ire, as when the president in April retweeted a message containing the hashtag #FireFauci – before publicly insisting the doctor was doing a great job.     

Overall, the anonymous sources have told the Post that the White House is essentially overwhelmed by the pandemic and feel completely helpless as they wrestle with the complete inability to curb its spread while also attempting see the economy bounce back, all the while promoting the president’s re-election.  

‘We need to plan now for how we turn the corner in 2021, and one thing we should be doing is laying the foundation to get public schools reopened in the late winter or early spring,’ said Trump’s former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Scott Gottlieb. ‘If we don’t plan now, we’ll lose the opportunity to prioritize opening what should be most important to us, just as we lost that chance in the fall because we didn’t plan appropriately this summer.’   

Fauci’s warnings on how the virus will proceed have been blunt despite Trump continuing to hold maskless rallies and insisting that life is returning to normal.

Trump told reporters he was not concerned that supporters who flock to his events might contract the virus, even though he, his family and many White House staffers have battled the disease in recent weeks.

The president criticized Democratic officials in Minnesota for enforcing social-distancing rules that limited his rally to 250 people. ‘It’s a small thing, but a horrible thing,’ he said. 

No longer speaking to the president daily, Fauci believes it is his duty to conduct as many interviews as possible with local media in cities across the nation. 

‘The thing we can do is to try to get the message out,’ Fauci said.  

‘All of a sudden, they didn’t like what the message was because it wasn’t what they wanted to do anymore,’ Fauci explains. ‘They needed to have a medical message that was essentially consistent with what they were saying.

‘And one of the ways to say the outbreak is over is to say it’s really irrelevant because it doesn’t make any difference. All you need to do is prevent people from dying and protect people in places like the nursing homes. The only medical person who sees the president on a regular basis is Scott Atlas.’   

‘He insists he’s not somebody who’s pushing for herd immunity,’ Fauci says of Atlas. ‘He says, ‘That’s not what I mean.’ [But] everything he says — when you put them together and stitch them together — everything is geared toward the concept of ‘it doesn’t make any difference if people get infected. It’s a waste of time. Masks don’t work. Who cares,’ and the only thing you need to do is protect the vulnerable, like people in the nursing homes,’ Fauci said.

Fauci said that one major concern is that many who contract the virus often suffer from long term health problems.

‘The idea of this false narrative that if you don’t die, everything is hunky dory is just not the case,’ he said. ‘But to say, ‘Let people get infected, it doesn’t matter, just make sure people don’t die’ — to me as a person who’s been practicing medicine for 50 years, it doesn’t make any sense at all.’ 

‘Even though we’re getting challenged with more cases, the medical system is much better prepared to take care of seriously ill people, so that’s the reason why I think the surge of cases is going to be counterbalanced by better experience,’ Fauci said to the Post.

Fauci expressed concern over the possible surge that is likely to come this winter that not all areas of the country will be able to handle – especially in Midwestern and Western states who have a limited number of intensive care beds and nurses. 

‘It’s much more about some of the states like Utah, Nevada, South Dakota, North Dakota, where … they never had a pretty good reserve of intensive care beds and things like that. I hope they’ll be okay, but it’s still a risk that, as you get more surging, they’re going to run out of capacity,’ Fauci said.