Sun Sentinel Broward Edition

Trump declares there’s a war on Thanksgivi­ng — vows to stop it

- By Anthony Man By Anthony Man and Skyler Swisher

President Donald Trump, at his pre-Thanksgivi­ng campaign rally in Florida, made a startling claim: There’s a sinister plot brewing — to change the name of Thanksgivi­ng.

The president didn’t specify where the Thanksgivi­ng threat is coming from — but he vowed to lead the resistance and crush the threat.

The president raised the issue minutes after he took the stage at the BB&T Center in Sunrise before a filled-to-capacity crowd of some 20,000. After his speech, he helicopter­ed to the place he spends every Thanksgivi­ng, his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach.

He wandered, rhetorical­ly, into the topic after explaining “I’m working my ass off,” praising Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and urging people to register to vote.

“As we gather together for Thanksgivi­ng, you know some people want to change the name Thanksgivi­ng. They don’t want to use the term Thanksgivi­ng [at which point the crowd booed loudly] that was true also with

Christmas, but now everybody’s using Christmas again remember I said that [the crowd cheered].

“But now we’re going to have to do a little work on Thanksgivi­ng people have different ideas why it shouldn’t be called Thanksgivi­ng. But everybody in this room, I know, loves the name Thanksgivi­ng and we’re not changing it.”

It left many people wondering just where Trump came up with the notion that Thanksgivi­ng is under threat.

The answer, apparently, is his favorite source of informatio­n: Fox News.

The website Mediaite reported that a HuffPost article this month described how to have an environmen­tally friendly Thanksgivi­ng dinner.

That resulted in an explosion of coverage on multiple Fox

President Donald Trump offered some advice to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday night — take off your jacket and show off your muscle-bound physique.

Trump’s evidence: He said he’s seen DeSantis without his shirt on.

As part of his introducti­on of DeSantis during Trump’s campaign rally at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Trump told the crowd that DeSantis is in great physical shape.

Trump said he used to think DeSantis was overweight when he saw him on TV. “I always thought Ron was a little bit heavy.”

But that changed during encounter.

“One day I am with him and I pat him on the shoulder and I go, whoa! That’s strong,” Trump recalled. “That’s a lot of muscle there. My hand didn’t sink in like it does with a lot of people. And then one

I see him without a shirt one day, and this guy is strong. He’s not fat. That’s all power. That’s all muscle. I want to tell you that.

“I said, ‘Ron, you’re one of the few I say it to: Don’t walk around with a jacket all the time. Take it off,’” Trump said.

“He’s a great guy, he’s a tough guy, he’s a brilliant guy and he’s our governor,” Trump added.

Helen Ferre, the governor’s communicat­ions director, said by text after the Tuesday event that the president evidently meant to say he saw DeSantis without a jacket, not without a shirt. The two have played golf together, she said.

DeSantis, for his part, praised the president at the rally and touted his signature on legislatio­n banning sanctuary cities, putting conservati­ves on the state Supreme Court, and getting rid of vestiges of Common Core curriculum.

Much of the credit for DeSantis’ August 2018 Republican primary win goes

to Trump, who backed him enthusiast­ically. Trump recalled DeSantis’ performanc­e in his former job, as a member of Congress, when he was “always protecting me from the Russian witch hunt.”

“One day I am with him and I pat him on the shoulder and I go, whoa! That’s strong. That’s a lot of muscle there. My hand didn’t sink in like it does with a lot of people. And then I see him without a shirt one day, and this guy is strong. He’s not fat. That’s all power. That’s all muscle. I want to tell you that.”

President Donald Trump

 ?? PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP ??
PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP

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