In his 12th visit to state, he vows a victory here in 2020, says Dems are a threat to oil industry
As Democrats pursue the impeachment of President Donald Trump and even Republicans in Congress turn against him on his foreign policy, Kelli Duarte has a message for them.
“Leave the man alone already,” said the 38-year-old from tiny Liberty City in East Texas. “He’s trying to make this country better. Look what he’s doing for the economy.”
Duarte and her father, Johnny Allen, 72, drove more than 100 miles on Thursday to make sure they were among the 20,000 people in the crowd as Trump escaped Washington to find his recharge in a sea of red Make America Great Again hats.
“I’m thrilled to be here deep in the heart of Texas,” Trump said to a deafening applause at American Airlines Center in Dallas. “There has never been a better time to be a proud Texan.”
As he’s done in previous rallies in the last month in Louisiana and Minneapolis, Trump railed against what he called the “Russia hoax” and “the outrageous impeachment witch hunt” against him.
Trump said the more success he has “the more hateful and enraged these crazy Democrats get.”
Trump said it has gotten so bad that he doesn’t believe Democrats love the country.
“The do-nothing Democrats have betrayed our country,” Trump said.
Among those in the crowd was former Gov. Rick Perry, who is
leaving the administration as Trump’s energy secretary. Perry, one of the longest-serving members of the administration, had submitted his resignation earlier on Thursday.
“Rick Perry couldn’t have done a better job,” Trump told the crowd.
Perry’s resignation comes amid deepening inquiries into his role in the administration’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
Perry’s ties to the scandal became public a month ago when a whistleblower complaint said Trump sent Perry to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s inauguration earlier this year.
Trump also used his speech to celebrate a new deal with Turkey, which has agreed to suspend its military operations in northern Syria for five days to allow Syrian Kurdish fighters to leave the region. Trump hailed the news as further evidence that he’s handling the situation there well.
Trump has come under withering criticism for his handling of Syria after he pulled U.S. troops out of the region to allow Turkey to invade Syria and attack the Kurds, who helped the U.S. fight the Islamic State group. Congress passed a resolution on Wednesday opposing the president’s actions. The majority of Republicans in Congress joined with Democrats in passing that resolution — including most of the Texas delegation.
Texas has increasingly become a concern for Trump’s re-election, and Thursday’s appearance marked his 12th stop in the state since he took office in 2017.
While Trump carried the state in 2016 over Hillary Clinton, his 52 percent victory was the tightest for a Republican presidential candidate in Texas since 1996. After Democrat Beto O’Rourke came within 3 percentage points of defeating U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Republicans including U.S. Sen. John Cornyn have warned that Texas is more of a battleground now.
Before Trump spoke, Cornyn told the audience that Democrats are organized and ready.
“If they take Texas, they will take the White House,” Cornyn said.
As he has done in previous stops, Trump went after O’Rourke, who he said is through in Texas after he proposed taking away the tax-exempt status of churches that don’t recognize same-sex marriages and advocated forcing people to give up their assault-style rifles such as AR-15s and AK-47s.
O’Rourke, meanwhile, held his own rally just 14 miles away on Thursday to counter Trump with what he called a “Rally Against Fear.”
O’Rourke condemned the racism and hatred within the country that he said Trump has allowed to prosper.
“We know that in those communities that have hosted a rally by Donald Trump, we’ve seen hate crimes on the rise more than 200 percent,” O’Rourke said. “In fact, in El Paso, Texas, preceding that massacre and that act of terror in Texas, there was a Donald Trump rally in February.”
O’Rourke also criticized the Trump administration’s family separation and other immigration policies, which he said have also created fear. “We cannot sit idly by and in our silence be complicit in the violence and the terror and racism that exists in this country at unprecedented levels in our lifetime,” O’Rourke said. “So we stand together and we stand against fear.”
While Trump carried Texas, his rally on Thursday was in a county where he performed particularly poorly in 2016. Trump won just 35 percent of the vote in Dallas County against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Before the rally in Dallas, Trump attended a fundraiser with supporters in Fort Worth before touring a new Louis Vuitton leather workshop in nearby Johnson County. Trump pointed to the factory as evidence his presidency has boosted the economy. Louis Vuitton has said it intends to create 1,000 jobs in Johnson County over the next five years.
Trump said the Democrats are a threat to the Texas economy, especially the oil and gas industry. He celebrated record-low unemployment rates in Texas plus the creation of more than 700,000 new jobs, including 70,000 in the manufacturing sector since the end of 2016.
“Donald Trump isn’t going to lose Texas,” he said to a roar.