Trump in campaign mode at raucous rally
DULUTH, Minn. — Hours after abruptly reversing himself to end the forced separations of migrant families, President Donald Trump returned to the warm embrace of his supporters at a raucous rally Wednesday to fiercely defend his hardline immigration policies while unleashing a torrent of grievances about the media and those investigating him.
Trump downplayed the crisis that has threatened to envelop the White House amid days of heart-wrenching images of children being pulled from their immigrant parents along the nation’s southern border. He made only a brief mention at the rally of his decision to sign an executive order after spending days insisting, wrongly, that his administration had no choice but to separate families apprehended at the border because of federal law and a court decision.
“We’re going to keep families together, and the border is going to be just as tough as it’s been,” Trump told the cheering crowd in Duluth.
The president launched into a vicious denunciation of his political opponents and those who make unauthorized border crossings, suggesting that the money used to care for those immigrants could be better spent on the nation’s rural communities and inner cities.
“Democrats put illegal immigrants before they put American citizens. What the hell is going on?” roared Trump, prompting the crowd to chant “Build the wall!”
Trump falsely accused the media of focusing on family separations and the detention of children at the border in order to distract the public from congressional inquiries into a Justice Department watchdog report. The report backed up the FBI’s decision not to bring charges against Clinton after its investigation of her use of private emails as secretary of state.
“Have you been seeing this whole scam? Do you believe what you’re seeing — how that no matter what she did, no matter how many crimes she committed, which were numerous, they wanted her Supporters of President Donald Trump respond to his call to boo the news media during his campaign-style rally Wednesday in Duluth, Minn. to be innocent,” Trump said. “But with me, nothing. No collusion, no nothing. They wanted to put us in trouble.”
The crowd, numbering about 8,000, responded with a “Lock her up!” chant.
The president also accused the media of providing one-sided reports about his Singapore summit with Kim.
“We had a great meeting. We had great chemistry,” said Trump, who predicted that Kim “will turn that country into a great successful country.”
“These people,” said Trump, gesturing to the media at the back of the arena, “say, ‘He’s given away so much.’ You know what I gave up? A meeting.”
Echoing a tactic from the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump called the media “those very dishonest people” and at one point gestured toward the press riser, eliciting loud boos and chants of “CNN sucks!” from the crowd.
Trump demanded to know why television news networks don’t pan his crowd, showing its mass and might. And he mocked the protesters who dared to interrupt him.
When one young man was escorted out by authorities, Trump yelled: “Going home to his mom.” A few minutes later, when another man with long, straggly hair was led out of the arena, the president asked, gleefully, “Is that a man or a woman? I couldn’t tell. Needs a haircut.”
There were chants of the president’s name, along with “USA! USA! USA!” and “Drain the swamp!” When the president vaguely alluded to the senator who unexpectedly voted against repealing and replacing Obamacare, a man in the stands bellowed, “John McCain!” and a woman shouted, “Coward!”
The president also wondered why he is not considered part of the nation’s elite.
“You ever notice they always call the other side ‘the elite,’” Trump asked. “The elite! Why are they elite? I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are. I became president, and they didn’t.”
And at one point, the president asked — as he did during his campaign — if there is “anything more fun than a Trump rally.”
The crowd signaled there was not. Some people jumped their fists into the air, while others whistled, whooped and screamed out: “Thank you!” and “We love you, Trump!”
Trump was in Minnesota to back Pete Stauber, a Republican congressional candidate running in a traditionally Democratic district.