President Trump rallied supporters in North Carolina on Saturday on a campaign swing through three battleground states, warning Americans not to support 77-year-old Democratic rival Joseph R. Biden simply because “they feel sorry for him.”
Speaking at a campaign rally in Lumberton, the president highlighted examples of Mr. Biden getting confused about where he was speaking, and forgetting which office he was running for.
“We’re playing with the greatest country in the world,” Mr. Trump, 74, said at a campaign rally in Lumberton. “Some people, frankly are going to vote for him .. [because] they feel badly. They feel sorry for him. I’m sorry. You can’t do that. We are playing in the big leagues.”He also accused the former vice president of using his office during the Obama administration to enrich himself and his family with sweetheart deals overseas.
“I fight for the middle class, and Biden and his cronies serve only one class — they serve the donor class,” Mr. Trump said. “Joe Biden’s allegiance is to his donors, and my allegiance is to the people of this country.”
He said Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, followed his father around the world “like a vacuum cleaner” sucking up cash from deals made possible from his father’s position.The Democrat has out-raised the president by a significant margin in campaign donations. Mr. Biden had a roughly three-to-one advantage in cash on hand at the start of this month.
The president also has campaign rallies in Ohio and Wisconsin on Saturday, with 10 days until voting ends on Nov. 3.
The campaign stop in Robeson County, North Carolina, focused on the president’s vision for Native American communities and “the forgotten men and women of North Carolina.” Members of the Lumbee Tribe, the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River, attended the rally and banged on drums in support of the president as he spoke.
“I love the sound of the drum,” the president said.
He said the Lumbee Tribe has been “wrongfully denied federal recognition for more than a century.” Mr. Trump said he will sign a law to recognize the tribe if he’s reelected.
“Biden and [President] Obama promised to end this injustice a long time ago, and many times they broke their word,” Mr. Trump said. “North Carolina wants to see it happen.”
Nearly 3 million people have voted in North Carolina as of Saturday — 40.8% Democratic, 29.7% Republican, and 29% with no party affiliation. Robeson County has the lowest early-vote turnout in the state so far — 26.1%, according to the U.S. Elections Project. As he did in Florida on Friday, the president showed the audience a video on big screens of Mr. Biden being grilled by former primary opponent Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont about his statements that he would cut spending on Social Security and Medicare.
“These are two things that politically you can’t even think about,” Mr. Trump said. “Remember that. He’ll cut your Social Security. He doesn’t care.”
The president again pounded Mr. Biden for saying at their final debate on Thursday night that he would “transition” the U.S. away from the oil industry in favor of “clean” energy.
“They spent the next two days trying to convince you that he didn’t really mean that,” the president said of Mr. Biden and his campaign team. “Joe’s not what you need. I know what you need. You need Trump.”
Mr. Biden said in Pennsylvania on Saturday that he won’t ban “fracking,” a method of drilling for natural gas that is widespread in the western part of the swing state.
The president mocked Mr. Biden’s campaign event, with the Democrat speaking to a socially distanced audience sitting in parked cars.
“I was surprised he did that actually. It was a tiny, tiny crowd,” Mr. Trump said. “You heard a couple a couple of horns, ’honk honk’ it was the weirdest thing.”
The president also reiterated his claim that the U.S. is seeing a rise in cases of COVID-19 “because we test so much.”
“In many ways it’s good. And in many ways it’s very foolish,” the president said. “The mortality rate is down 85 percent. By doing all of this testing … we show more cases. It gives the fake news media something to talk about. If we tested half, cases would be half. They want us to test, test, test, and part of the reason is that [negative headlines]. We’re dealing with some very bad people.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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