MANKATO, Minn. (AP) – Declaring ‘crunch time’ for the upcoming elections, President Donald Trump on Monday in the Midwest field trip states on a law and order message around the presentation of former Vice President Joe Biden against the Democratic National Convention against to go.
In Mankato, Minnesota, Trump stepped up his rhetoric against Biden, calling him a ‘puppet of left-wing extremists trying to clear our borders, eliminate our police, indoctrinate our children, remove our heroes, drain our energy. nobody. ‘ Speaking to a crowd of hundreds of supporters outside an airplane hangar, Trump claimed that a victory for Biden “would replace American freedom with left-wing fascism.”
“Fascists. They are fascists, “Trump continued, although fascism is a form of right-wing nationalism. ‘Some of them, not all of them, but some of them. But they are getting closer and closer. We have to win these elections. But the proud people of Minnesota will not let this happen. ”
On Monday, Trump also visited Wisconsin – the official host state of the fully virtual Democratic National Convention – to launch a week of travel and political events with the goal of stumping the usual polling bounce a candidate receives during their convention week. The president traps in both public and private polls less than three months before election day.
Earlier in the day, Trump stopped in Minneapolis to hold an event with small business owners whose stores were damaged following violent protests following the assassination of George Floyd in police custody.
‘I’m here to help you. We will bring law and order back to your community. We will bring it back, and we will bring it back immediately, “Trump told supporters on the gut of the airport. He does not dare go to the scene of the protests or the memory of Floyd in the city.
Minnesota Prime Minister Tim Walz said the White House was interested in Trump attending the trial in Minneapolis instead of Floyd’s fatal encounter with police on Memorial Day.
‘I spent this weekend telling the White House why it was a really bad idea to let President Trump go and stand at the George Floyd memorial and (if) use it as a backdrop for his campaign and the pain and the ill-fated that we feel in Minnesota, ”the governor said Monday during a virtual morning session for the state delegation to the DNC.
White House Secretary of State Mark Meadows disputed Walz’s ruling. “Gov. “Walz never touched me, neither the president, nor the campaign, so he might be haunting,” Meadows told The Associated Press. “We’ve communicated before, so he has our contact information.”
On the asphalt in Minneapolis, Trump lined up about 150 supporters – half of them with masks – who shouted “Four more years!” Trump told her Democrats will take the Constitutional Amendment to bear arms, although Biden has said he will work to process gun reform from the mouth.
Trump also criticized Biden for supporting an expansion in refugee asylum permits, including from what the president called “terrorist hot spots,” an apparent reference to the large community of Somali refugees in Minnesota.
“I will be so politically correct,” Trump said, before taking credit for his travel ban on some Muslim-majority countries, saying, “We want people to come to our country who love our country.”
In Wisconsin, which Trump won by less than 1 percentage point in 2016, the president said he now sees more “spirit.”
‘You see, this is easier in a sense. “Well, the virus made it a little bit more difficult, maybe a little bit harder, because all of a sudden something happened that nobody even thought about,” Trump said in Oshkosh at another airport hangar event. “But we handled it.”
When Trump attacked Biden, his plans for his own convention began to come into focus next week after the coronavirus scrapped personal meetings in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida. Trump is set to accept the Republican nomination for the White House, with the Republican National Committee submitting a permit application to launch fireworks from the National Mall to mark the occasion. A spokesman said the application was pending.
Marking his hardest week of political journey since the coronavirus put an end to his campaign scheme and widened his chances of re-election, Trump sharply criticized Biden’s economic policies in the states of the Upper Midwest battleground.
On Tuesday, Trump will take over Biden on his immigration policy during a visit to Yuma, Arizona. He is also scheduled to travel to Pennsylvania, the state of Biden’s birth, on Thursday, prior to the Democrat’s acceptance.
Trump’s aggressive pressure comes as his path to reelection has been blocked since the hit of the coronavirus, and he has been forced to play defense in the states that carried him to reelection four years ago. Minnesota, seen a year ago as a GOP pickup opportunity, now seems to be slipping out of reach, Republicans say.
Wisconsin, a state that had voted for Democratic presidents for decades until Trump’s victory in 2016, has emerged as one of the toughest field jobs of 2020. Vice President Mike Pence plans to leave the southern part of the state on Wednesday. to try. Trump’s campaign considers the whiter, older demographics of the state to be more favorable than Michigan, which Trump also won four years ago, but is increasingly seen as a likely Democratic pickup.
Trump’s campaign takes advantage of Biden’s decision – because of the coronavirus – not to travel to Milwaukee for the convention, and accuses Democrats of ‘effectively leaving’ Wisconsin ‘. The GOP is sending surrogates to the state this week in a show of strength, including Pence and Republican National Committee Chairman Ronna McDaniel.
Democrats spend resources on television commercials and field organization in the state. Biden and California Sen. Kamala Harris, his newly announced running mate, are set to deliver their convention addresses from Biden’s home state of Delaware this week, reducing the need for air travel.
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Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis, and Deb Riechmann, Darlene Superville, and Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to this report.
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