President Trump warns against a Biden victory during rally in North Carolina
Speaking to thousands of supporters in Gastonia, President Donald Trump Wednesday night painted a dire portrait of an America led by Democrat Joe Biden.
“If Biden wins, the flag-burning demonstrators in the street will be running your federal government,” he said. “They will re-educate your children (and be) letting rioters and MS-13 killers roam free without masks.”
Trump spoke to an estimated 15,000 people who crowded into the Gastonia Municipal Airport. Roads around the airport were jammed hours ahead of his arrival.
Analysts say the state and its 15 electoral votes are crucial for Trump, who made his seventh appearance in North Carolina since he spoke to Republican convention delegates in Charlotte on Aug. 24.
“I’ve been all over your state,” the president told the crowd. “You better let me win.”
North Carolina is a battleground where Trump and Biden have been virtually deadlocked for months. Biden holds a narrow, 2.3-point lead in Real Clear Politics’ average of a half-dozen recent polls.
Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris campaigned in Charlotte Wednesday and attended an event at uptown’s Truist Field around the same time as Trump’s event.
Trump’s appearance came the night before his final debate with Biden in Nashville.
In a speech that strayed from topic to topic, Trump criticized Democratic N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper and his response to the coronavirus, the media, “tech giants” and China.
“If Biden wins, China will own the United States,” he said.
He said Biden would raise taxes. Biden has said he would only raise taxes on those making more than $400,000. And Trump made unsubstantiated charges that Biden would take away Second Amendment rights, make every city a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants and lead to a Depression “the likes of which you haven’t seen since 1929.”
Despite more than three years in office, Trump portrayed himself as as outsider.
“If I don’t sound like a typical Washington politician,” he said. “It’s because I’m not a politician.”
Supporters cheered and clapped at nearly every one of his proclamations.
Ashleigh Essic, 35, came to the rally from Winston-Salem. She said she was undecided in 2016 about who she would vote for in the presidential election, though she ended up voting for Trump.
“He was so angry,” she said. “I thought it would’ve been cool to have a female president.”
But she’s fully on board on Trump’s re-election bid this year, thanks in part to what Trump has done for her husband in the military. “He got a pay raise,” Essic said. “That’s what he did for me.
“He’s done a lot of the Black community,” she added.
More than 2.15 million North Carolina voters have cast their ballots as of Tuesday, or about 29% of registered voters, according to the N.C. Board of Elections. Almost 1.5 million voters have been in cast at early voting poll sites, while 660,390 have voted absentee by-mail.
‘Super-spreader’ ad
Trump touted his record, including his steps to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed 220,000 Americans and has shown signs of spiking across the country. He said America has seen the “fastest recovery” of any country. Some countries, however, have seen faster economic rebounds.
The president was hospitalized with the virus earlier this month and was treated with Regeneron and other drugs.
“I woke up the next morning and I felt like Superman,” Trump said.
The president’s visit came the same day Cooper extended Phase 3 of the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as new coronavirus cases reached highs not seen in months. That means capacity limits will remain in place for restaurants and breweries as well as for mass gatherings. Those limits on gatherings don’t apply to political rallies like Trump’s.
Biden’s campaign released a new ad in the Charlotte market Wednesday that played off the rise in coronavirus cases. Against pictures of Trump at rallies, a narrator says, “He swore an oath to protect us. But now he’s on a reckless campaign tour, infecting us . . . Holding potential super-spreader events in state after state.”
The campaign also sent a mobile billboard around Gaston County with the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in North Carolina.
“Nearly 4,000 North Carolinians have died due to COVID-19 and nearly 250,000 have tested positive, but President Trump still has no plan on how to get this virus under control,” Biden said in a statement. “Instead, he is attacking our nation’s leading scientists . . . continuing to spread deadly misinformation about the virus, and holding rallies that fly in the face of North Carolina’s COVID-19 guidelines.”
North Carolina surpassed 250,000 cases and 4,000 reported deaths connected to COVID-19 on Wednesday.
Trump called on Cooper to “open the state up.” He also called Cooper’s Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, on stage. Forest compared Cooper to Biden.
“Their job is to destroy, not to build up,” Forest said. “President Trump has done more for the United States of America in the last 46 months than Joe Biden has done in the last 46 years.”
Before Trump arrived, Forest told the crowd he would repeal Cooper’s mask mandate if elected.
‘A choice’
Trump touted his administration’s accomplishments, including recent peace deals between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Army veteran Sylvia Luvker of Hickory said as a Christian, Israel is the center of the world for her and one of her top issues.
“He’s God’s man,” said Luvker, 68. “If you can get the embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, then he’s God’s man.”
Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, whose 5th District now includes Gaston and Cleveland counties, called the presidential race “a choice election.”
“Do we want to continue being the freest nation in the world?” she asked the crowd before Trump arrived. “It’s a simple issue. This election is about freedom or more government control. That’s the choice.”
Chip Bowles, a 74-year-old from Huntersville, said he voted for Trump when he lived in Florida in 2016 “and I’m obviously voting for him again.”
“I want him to finish the wall, I want him to bring companies back to the U.S. He knows how to do it — give them tax breaks,” he said. “We don’t always like what he says, but he gets things done. More than any other president, he gets things done. He’s building a wall. He got tax breaks passed.”
About a third of the wall is complete, though few new sections have been built during Trump’s term.
The president hinted that it might not be his last trip to North Carolina before the Nov. 3 election.
“From Asheville — we’ll be there soon — to Charlotte, from Wilmington to Raleigh, and from Greensboro to right here in Gastonia, we stand on the shoulders of red-blooded American patriots who poured out their heart, sweat and soul to secure our liberty and to defend our freedom,” he said. “And you haven’t seen anything yet.”
This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 2:40 PM with the headline "President Trump warns against a Biden victory during rally in North Carolina."
