Trump tries to shore up support from big business and Iowans
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump on Wednesday sought to shore up support from constituencies that not so long ago he thought he had in the bag: big business and voters in the red state of Iowa.
In a morning address to business leaders, he expressed puzzlement that they would even consider supporting his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, arguing that his own leadership was a better bet for a strong economy. The president was set to campaign later in the day in Iowa, a state he won handily in 2016 but where Biden is making a late push.
Biden, for his part, held a virtual fundraiser from Wilming ton, Delaware, and was delivering pretaped remarks to American Muslims in the evening. He did not have any public campaign events scheduled, unusual for just 20 days out from Election Day.
The Democratic nominee used his appearance at the fundraiser to say that Trump was trying to rush through Amy Coney Barrett, his nominee for the Supreme Court, to help his efforts to repeal the Obama health care law, calling that “an abuse of power.”
Biden was expected to spend much of the day preparing for a town-hallstyle TV appearance in battleground Pennsylvania on
Thursday, which was to have been the night of the second presidential debate.
Instead, the candidates will have dueling town halls on network television — Trump’s in Miami and sponsored by NBC News, Biden’s in Philadelphia and on ABC. Trump backed out of plans for the originally scheduled presidential faceoff after debate organizers last week shifted the format to a virtual event following Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis.
Trump used his economic address Wednesday to play up his administration’s commitment to lowering taxes and deregulation of industry, and he didn’t hide his frustration with signs that some in the
business community are tilting to Biden.
“I know I’m speaking to some Democrats, and some of you are friends of mine,” Trump said in a virtual address to the Economic Clubs of New York, Florida, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Pittsburgh and Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Should Biden be elected, he continued, “You will see things happen that will not make you happy. I don’t understand your thinking.”
The former vice president has collected more than $50 million in campaign contributions from donors in the securities and investment sectors, according to the private nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. During
his decades in the Senate representing Delaware, a center for the credit card and banking industries, Biden built relationships and a voting record in the business sector that has raised suspicion on the left but provides Wall Street with a measure of ease at the prospect of a Biden administration.
After being sidelined by the coronavirus, Trump has resumed a breakneck schedule this week, with travel and campaign rallies every day. Trump has appeared hale in his public appearances since reemerging from quarantine, though at moments during his economic address on Wednesday his voice was raspy.