President Trump launched a final three-day blitz of campaign rallies in seven swing states on Saturday, telling supporters in Pennsylvania that he’s still a Washington outsider fighting a corrupt political class led by Democrat Joseph R. Biden.
“From Day One, Washington insiders have been trying to stop me, because they do not own me and they do not control me,” the president said at an outdoor rally in Newtown, Pennsylvania. “If these corrupt forces succeed in electing Joe Biden, Washington will see to it that another outsider never becomes president again.”
Mr. Trump held the first of his four scheduled rallies in Pennsylvania at a historic farmhouse in Bucks County, where Gen. George Washington plotted his legendary crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas 1776 to attack Hessian and British forces near Trenton, New Jersey.
The president said Washington’s soldiers “were determined to live in a county where power belongs to the people.”
“That priceless inheritance is at stake just three days from now, and a great red wave is forming,” Mr. Trump said. “And there’s not a thing they [Democrats] can do about it.”
He asked, “Do you want to be ruled by a corrupt political class, or do you want to be governed by the American people?”
The president plans to hold at least 14 campaign rallies in seven states through Monday night, leading up to Election Day. His voice sounded slightly hoarse, after a grueling schedule over the past few days that has taken him from freezing cold night-time rallies in Wisconsin and Nebraska to sweltering afternoon heat in Florida.
“I can’t tell what’s going to happen after [Monday] — I think we’ll just go home and rest,” Mr. Trump said.
The president referred to his treatment for COVID-19, joking that he recovered quickly because “I am a great physical specimen.”
Mr. Trump elicited a standing ovation from the crowd in Newtown when he talked about a successful U.S. Special Forces raid in Nigeria overnight that rescued an American hostage who had been kidnapped.
“We celebrate the safe return home of an American hostage,” Mr. Trump said. “The kidnappers wished they had never done it. They [Special Forces] went in with a large group, zero casualties. We got our young man back. But the other side suffered greatly. Our nation salutes its courageous military, which brilliantly executed this operation. Very few people would have been able to do it. It was very complicated and very complex, a tough area.”
Mr. Trump attacked his rival for disastrous trade policies that have harmed Pennsylvania’s economy for decades.
“He wiped out Pennsylvania steel. He was a cheerleader for NAFTA,” Mr. Trump said. “The corrupt Washington class launched an economic war against this state. For decades, they targeted your steel mills, shut down your plants and sent millions of jobs overseas, all the while lining their pockets with special interests’ cash. And no one embodies this betrayal and treachery more than Joe Biden.”
Referring to Mr. Biden’s large lead in campaign donations, the president said it’s proof that the former vice president will be beholden to corporate special interests.
“You have the power to end their corrupt rule once and for all,” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t take instructions from donors and lobbyists. I don’t care about them. I do what’s right for America. It’s made me a lot of enemies in Washington, but I wear their opposition as a badge of honor.”
As the incumbent, Mr. Trump said, he could have raised far more money than his rival.
“As president, all I had to do was call Wall Street, the big banks,” he said. “I could have called the oil companies. Many of them would have given me whatever I wanted. But I chose not to do that. It would have compromised our nation. Joe Biden works for them. It’s not the way I want to work. This is one opportunity to turn our country around, and we’re not going to blow it.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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