Trump rallies supporters for GOP

LEWIS CENTER, Ohio — Embracing his return to campaign politics, President Donald Trump on Saturday argued that Republicans need to control Congress by casting the midterms as a referendum on himself.

In a raucous rally in a sweltering gymnasium north of Columbus, Ohio, Trump pitched for a GOP candidate in a special election next week and defiantly questioned the idea that, historically, the party that controls the White House suffers in the midterms, declaring, “But I say why?”

“Why would there be a blue wave? I think it could be a red wave,” Trump said. “They want to take away what we’ve given. And we’re doing a lot of things people don’t even know about.”

Though boisterous and bellicose, Trump steered clear of the trouble he stirred up the night before when he blasted one of Ohio’s favorite sons, LeBron James. In a late-night tweet, Trump derided the intelligence of one of the nation’s most prominent AfricanAmerican men.

But while he didn’t mention the Akron native, he did invoke similar rhetoric while training fire on one of his new favorite targets, Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters of California. He tore into Waters, who is also black, and derided her as “an extremely low IQ person.”

Flanked by signs that read “Promises Made” and “Promises Kept,” Trump touted his supporters as “forgotten no more,” saying that they, and he, were the nation’s true “elite.”

“I became president and they didn’t. Meaning you became president. And it’s driving them crazy.”