Trump trashes journalists at rally in Pennsylvania
Event held to boost senatorial campaign
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Thundering that the media is the “fake, fake disgusting news,” President Donald Trump unleashed a torrent of grievances Thursday at a Pennsylvania campaign rally in which he cast journalists as his true political opponent.
Trump barnstormed in a state that he swiped from the Democrats in 2016 and that is home to a Senate seat he is trying to place in the Republicans’ column this fall. But the race between GOP U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta and twoterm incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey took a back seat to Trump’s invectives against the media, which came amid a backdrop of antagonism to journalists from the White House and hostility from the thousands packed into a loud, overheated Wilkes-Barre arena.
“Whatever happened to the free press? Whatever happened to honest reporting?” Trump asked, pointing to members of the media in the back of the hall. “They don’t report it. They only make up stories.”
Time and time again, Trump denounced the press for underselling his accomplishments and doubting his political rise.
He tore into the media for diminishing what he accomplished at his Singapore summit with North Korea leader Kim Jung Un. He tore into the tough questioning he received in Helsinki when he met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin last month. And he began the speech with a 10-minute remembrance of his 2016 election night victory, bemoaning that Pennsylvania wasn’t the state to clinch the White House for him only because “the fake news refused to call it.”
Though Barletta’s bid was an undercard to the Trump’s main event, savaging his opponents, the president did bless the congressman’s bid. Trump, who has accelerated his campaign schedule in recent weeks to help the Republicans he favors both in primaries and November’s midterms, was the first Republican to win Pennsylvania since 1988.
“For years and years, they said Republicans should win the state of Pennsylvania,” Trump said. “It always got away. But we won the state of Pennsylvania.”
He and Barletta, who is trailing by double digits in the polls, share hard-line immigration views, and Trump lashed Casey with his own derogatory nickname: “Sleeping Bob.”
But Trump’s focus was defending his own accomplishments and beliefs. He pushed for tougher border controls, overstating the threat posed by violent gangs like MS-13 and making the murderous group a stand-in for all immigrants in the United States illegally.
He defended his approach to both Kim and Putin, saying, “it would be a good thing, not a bad thing” to have warmer relations with the hostile powers and dismissing the talk that meeting with the autocrats elevated them on the world stage.
He bashed the Democratic leadership of Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and, curiously, suggested that his frequent foe Rep. Maxine Waters of California was “a new star” of the party.