Trump tears into Biden in return visit to Wisconsin
President takes his campaign to Mosinee
MOSINEE - President Donald Trump swept into central Wisconsin on Thursday and tore into Democrat Joe Biden, contending he would send jobs overseas and turn the country’s streets over to criminals.
“Joe Biden devoted his career to outsourcing Wisconsin jobs,” Trump told a crowd of thousands at the Central Wisconsin Airport. “Biden surrendered your jobs to China. You all know that.”
“For 47 years, Joe Biden crushed the dreams of Wisconsin workers.”
Trump was last in Wisconsin two weeks ago, when he visited Kenosha after a police shooting, looting and the killing of two protesters.
“Now Biden wants to surrender our country to the violent, left-wing mob,” Trump said. “Everybody wants law and order. We have to have it.”
Trump used much of his speech to attack Biden but also went after his running mate, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California.
“If a woman is going to become the first president of the United States, it can’t be her,” he said.
The president praised the Big Ten for its decision this week to start college football this season after earlier postponing it and singled out Barry Alvarez, the athletic director at the University of Wisconsin. Madison officials have urged fans not to gather for Badgers games as cases in the city climb — an increase largely driven by college
students.
“He’s a good man. We worked with him,” Trump said.
Trump held his rally in the same place he visited two years ago as he tried to boost the U.S. Senate campaign of Leah Vukmir and the reelection bid of thenGov. Scott Walker. Walker and Vukmir lost two weeks later.
Mosinee is in the heart of the 7th Congressional District, which covers much of central and northern Wisconsin and is a stronghold for the president.
He won the district by 20 points in 2016 and has made an appeal to rural voters. The crowd Thursday eagerly greeted him.
“He’s beholden to no one,” said Bob Koenecke, who drove 200 miles from his home in Burlington to see Trump for the first time. “He’s not part of the deep state. I don’t know, I just trust him. He’s one of us.”
Biden chides Trump on pandemic response
In a statement ahead of the rally, Biden chided Trump for his handling of the pandemic.
“For months, President Trump misled the American people about the coronavirus — and Wisconsin families continue to suffer the consequences,” his statement said.
“His betrayal of the fundamental duties of the office has left Wisconsin small businesses shuttered, parents worrying about their children’s safety at school, far too many workers out of a job and thousands of families mourning the loss of loved ones.”
Trump has taken an all-in approach to Wisconsin. Two weeks before Trump’s recent visit to Kenosha, he was in Oshkosh.
In addition, Vice President Mike Pence recently made two stops in Wisconsin in eight days and is returning next week. And the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., spoke Tuesday at a hotel in Rothschild, which like Mosinee is near Wausau.
Whether the strategy will work is unclear. A poll released Wednesday by the Washington Post and ABC News found Biden leading Trump 52% to 46% among likely Wisconsin voters. The results were within the poll’s margin of error, as was a survey last week by Marquette University Law School that found Biden leading Trump 47% to 43%.
Trump for a time backed away from his signature rallies because of the coronavirus pandemic but has embraced them anew as he pursues his reelection bid. In addition to his Wisconsin stop Thursday, Trump is planning on holding rallies Friday in Bemidji, Minnesota, and Saturday in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
In Mosinee, a largely maskless crowd gathered around the outdoor stage, with some spilling into an open hangar. Wisconsin requires those who are indoors to wear masks. Health officials also recommend people avoid crowds to avoid the spread of COVID-19.
Wisconsin hit a record Thursday, with more than 2,000 positive results reported for the day. In all, nearly 95,000 people have tested positive as cases spike, particularly on college campuses. Nationally, nearly 200,000 people have died from the illness.
“By comparison to other countries, almost all metrics we’ve done an incredible job,” Trump said.
As he has on other occasions, Trump said Thursday he hopes to have a vaccine by the end of the year, despite Senate testimony Wednesday from the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that a vaccine wouldn’t be widely available until mid-2021.
In a new book by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, Trump said he downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic to avoid causing panic. As he headed to Wisconsin on Thursday, Trump used Twitter to call Woodward’s book boring and argue he was “just another tired, washed up Trump Hater.”
Kristin Urquiza made a plea for Trump supporters to mask up at campaign events during a teleconference Thursday put on by the liberal group Protect Our Care. Urquiza’s father died of COVID-19 in Arizona and she spoke at the recent Democratic National Convention.
“I am so overwhelmed with the fact that the president continues to not only endanger the lives of us generally but his own supporters,” she said. “It just brings home the point that he cares about himself and his own interests, first and foremost.”
Trump has put his focus in recent weeks on looting and arson in Kenosha and elsewhere that erupted over the treatment of Black people by police. He noted at Thursday’s rally that he offered federal help to the state — assistance that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers initially declined.
“How about that? Did we do a good job?” Trump asked the crowd of his response to the city’s troubles.
“It’s a terrible thing that’s going on — all in Democratic-run, super liberal-run cities,” he said, referring to crime and unrest in Chicago, Minneapolis and Portland.
During his visit to Kenosha, Trump toured buildings that had been burned down and talked about the need to clamp down on riots. The unrest emerged after police officer Rusten Sheskey shot Jacob Blake from behind multiple times, paralyzing him. In Kenosha, Trump praised officers but said some of them sometimes “choke” when they make split-second decisions.
Two days later, Biden visited Kenosha and Milwaukee, met with Blake’s family and talked to Blake by phone.
Trump told the crowd he was winding down U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts.
“We’re almost out of Iraq,” he said. “Syria, we’re out.”
He mused about the Nobel Peace Prize, noting his predecessor Barack Obama got one.
“Nobody knows why he got it,” he said. “He did a lousy job. He was a lousy president.”
Before Trump arrived on Air Force One, the area’s Republican congressman, Tom Tiffany, told the crowd to make sure Trump gets reelected.
“We’re going to restore our way of life,” Tiffany said. “We’re going to defeat the virus . ... We’re going to protect your religious freedom. We’re going to defend the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. And we will always, always protect the unborn.”
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Oshkosh had planned to travel with Trump Thursday and attend the rally but instead announced he was going into quarantine until the end of the month because he had been exposed to someone with the coronavirus. Some showed up early for the 8 p.m. event. Van Patrick Gotz, who owns Awards ‘N More in Wisconsin Rapids, arrived for his first Trump rally at 9 a.m. to set up his merchandise booth. He said Thursday’s rally is a stark contrast to Biden’s recent appearance in Michigan, which was limited in scope due to COVID-19 precautions.
Gotz said he sells both Trump and Biden masks — he is a capitalist, he noted — but people rarely purchase the Biden products.
“This is really an indication of the excitement that Trump brings to Wisconsin and especially central Wisconsin,” he said.