President Trump got a rare assist on the stump Monday from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and senior adviser Kellyanne Conway.
Mr. Trump unexpectedly called the pair on stage at a rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
“You have to forgive Kellyanne and I, we are a little speechless. We’re not used to friendly crowds,” quipped Mrs. Sanders, who routinely spars with reporters at White House briefings.
The huge crowd applauded the wisecrack that was like red meat for the fake-news-hating Trump supporters.
Earlier, before Mr. Trump took the stage, the crowd spontaneously erupted into chants of “CNN sucks” directed at the network’s White House reporter Jim Acosta.
The rally in the War Memorial Coliseum aimed to boost Republican Mike Braun’s bid to oust incumbent Democrat Sen. Joe Donnelly.
It was the second stop in a three-state swing a day before an election in which Mr. Trump is fighting to keep a Republican majority in Congress.
“I love me some Hoosiers,” Mrs. Conway told the enthusiastic crowd. “Let me just say in my personal capacity, because this election is very personal to me, Joe must go. Get him out!”
The more than 13,000 supporters filling the coliseum, she said, reminded her of the huge crowds from the president’s 2016 campaign, when Mr. Trump defied the polls and pundits with an upset win.
“It looked an awful lot like this,” she said. “It’s starting to feel an awful lot the same.”
Mr. Trump said the stage time for the pair was not planned.
“I saw them standing there and I said get them up here,” he told the crowd.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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