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At a rally in the western state of Nevada, Trump ranged from attacks on Biden and bragging about his economic policies to discussions about toilet water pressure and a jersey worn by the commissioner of the National Football League.
FILE: US President Donald Trump addresses supporters during a campaign rally at MBS International Airport in Freeland, Michigan on September 10, 2020. Image: AFP.
CARSON CITY – President Donald Trump lashed out at “stupid” critics of his own party and called for unity on Sunday after mounting Republican criticism and warnings of a “bloodbath” in the Nov. 3 election.
Trump issued the remarks when he and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden landed in decisive states on the final stretch ahead of an election that opinion polls show the real estate mogul is at grave risk of losing.
At a rally in the western state of Nevada, Trump ranged from attacks on Biden and bragging about his economic policies to discussions about the pressure of bathroom water and a jersey worn by the commissioner of the National Football League.
But it also addressed comments from Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who recently told voters that Trump “kisses dictators’ butts,” mistreats women and uses the White House as a business.
Other Republicans have warned of electoral losses at the polls that will include parliamentary races, including Senator Ted Cruz, who like Sasse said there was a risk of a “bloodbath.”
Even one of Trump’s closest allies in the Senate, Lindsey Graham, recently said that Democrats have a “good chance” of winning the White House.
“We have stupid people,” Trump said at the rally in Carson City, Nevada’s capital.
“We have this guy Sasse, you know, he wants to make a statement … Republicans need to stick together better.”
Trump, struggling to make up lost ground, is on a furious multi-state tour, jumping from Nevada to California on Sunday and then back to Nevada for a day of rallies and fundraising, before moving to Arizona on Monday.
Visit to the church
A rare church attendee, he attended Sunday services at a cavernous, but not quite crowded, evangelical church in Las Vegas. Parishioners prayed for him, and as a collection plate was passed around, a pool photographer saw Trump toss out a handful of $ 20 bills.
Biden, a practicing Catholic, attended mass with his wife Jill at their church near Wilmington, Delaware, before walking outside to visit the grave of their son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.
Limiting his own campaign schedule due to pandemic concerns, Biden, 77, flew to North Carolina for a couple of events.
In Durham, the ex-vice president in a mask ran to a stage in a parking lot where people in dozens of vehicles were waiting for him.
“We choose hope over fear, we choose unity over division, science over fiction and yes, we choose truth over lies,” he told them.
His caravan also made an unannounced stop to allow him and his granddaughter to order smoothies, and Biden, eager to highlight the stark differences between his campaign and Trump’s, kept his mask on at all times.
The final nationally televised debate of the candidates will be Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee.
Their first debate descended into a chaotic stream of interruptions by Trump, head shakes and angry retorts; the second was replaced by mourning public gatherings after Trump virtually refused to debate after his fight with the coronavirus.
The final debate will be in person.
Trump still in polls
If there was any doubt about the 74-year-old president’s own recovery from the virus, his tight campaign schedule seems to disprove it, and his message, if anything, has grown sharper.
On Sunday, Trump again raised a controversial accusation that messages on a laptop belonging to Biden’s son Hunter implicated the former vice president in corrupt ties to Ukraine, calling it “proven fact.”
Biden’s campaign has repeatedly rejected the accusations, which the candidate angrily dismissed as a “smear campaign.”
But Trump has not backed down.
At a rally Saturday in Muskegon, Michigan, he called Biden “a criminal” and even joined an enthusiastic crowd in chants of “Lock him up!”
Trump also further fueled an American culture war with outlandish claims, saying that Democrats wanted to “erase American history, purge American values, and destroy the American way of life.”
With the president lagging behind in polls, some analysts say he should focus on America’s economic outlook, which Trump sees as his strong suit.
Nearly 220,000 Americans have died from Covid-19, the world’s worst total, and the outbreak is now spreading in many states at rates never before seen in months.
Polls show a majority of voters disapprove of his erratic handling of the pandemic, and Biden has made it a central issue, promising more sober leadership.
Ahead of Trump’s Nevada events, Biden said the president “must answer for his failed response to Covid-19.”
Trump has dismissed his weak poll data, while Biden’s supporters are also wary of overconfidence in an election that could tilt toward a close race in a single state like Florida.
Democrats targeted Trump on Sunday not only for his attacks on Biden, but also on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the recent target of a kidnapping plot by a heavily armed right-wing militia group.
The president is “encouraging and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism. It’s wrong. It has to stop. It’s dangerous,” Whitmer told NBC’s Meet the Press.
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