At rally in Cincinnati, Trump criticizes congressional foes
CINCINNATI — President Donald Trump used a rally Thursday in Cincinnati to criticize the Democrats he has been elevating as his new political foils, attacking four liberal congresswomen of color and their party’s urban leaders, while also targeting those he could be facing in 2020.
But the president mostly avoided the racial controversy that has dominated recent weeks as he basked in front of the raucous crowd for nearly 90 minutes, repeatedly attacking his political foes. Mr. Trump, who had faced widespread criticism for not doing more to stop the chants of “Send her back” about Somali- born Rep. Ilhan Omar at a rally last month, seemed to want to avoid further furor, urging his supporters ahead of the rally to avoid the chant and largely sticking to a greatest hits performance.
But while he did not mention Ms. Omar or her three colleagues by name in the opening moments of his Ohio gathering, the target of his attacks was unmistakable.
“The Democrat party is now being led by four leftwing extremists who reject everything that we hold dear,” Mr. Trump claimed of Ms. Omar and her fellow House Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
But the fleeting mention did not lead to further chants. Nor did an extended attack on Democratic leaders of urban areas, which Mr. Trump has laced into in recent days as part of his incendiary broadsides against Rep. Elijah Cummings and the majority-black city of Baltimore.
“No one has paid a higher price for the far- left destructive agenda than Americans living in our nation’s inner cities,” Mr. Trump said, drawing cheers from the mostly white crowd in the packed arena on the banks of the Ohio River.
The rally was the first for Mr. Trump since the “Send her back” chant at a North Carolina rally was denounced by Democrats and unnerved Republicans fearful of a presidential campaign fought on racial lines.
In the early moments of Thursday’s rally, Mr. Trump declared, “I don’t want to be controversial.” He mostly stuck to it.
With the eyes of the political world shifting from two days of Democratic debates to see if Mr. Trump would stoke racial anger, the president largely delivered his standard stump speech. But Mr. Trump, the most avid cable news viewer in the history of the office, could not resist delivering his review of the Detroit debates.
“The Democrats spent more time attacking Barack Obama than they did attacking me, practically,” Mr. Trump said.
Though boisterous at the beginning, the crowd began to thin as Mr. Trump crossed the hour mark and stayed disciplined in touting the strong economy and his administration’s accomplishments. The president’s remarks were also interrupted twice by protesters.