US election 2020: Teen clashes with Trump fan during rally blitz
A heated exchange over abortion issues has erupted between a 13-year-old boy and a female Trump supporter outside a drive-in rally for Joe Biden in Detroit.
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A heated exchange between a 13-year-old black boy and a female Trump supporter over abortion issues erupted outside a drive-in rally for Joe Biden in Detroit.
Former US president Barack Obama and singer Stevie Wonder were also in attendance at the event, but only a couple of hundred cars were allowed to attend.
A small crowd of Biden supporters were ordered to say hundreds of meters away from the rally.
The Trump supporter, Genevieve Peters, waved a Trump flag in front of about 100 Biden fans in a park near the rally. She had verbal spats with a number of Biden supporters.
“These people are low-information voters who need to hear the truth,” she said.
“I am from the working class and Donald Trump is about the working class and creating jobs for everyone.”
Teen Jerome Barnes Jr, whose dad Jerome Sr was nearby, told two middle-aged pro-life Trump supporters: “A woman can do as she wants with her own body. A woman will have a right to choose.”
The incredibly articulate young man told News Corp later: “This President, he doesn’t care about women or black lives matter, he’s in it for himself and his wealth and his friends. I believe it is time for a new generation of leadership.”
Asked why, at the age of 13, he was arguing with Republicans at a rally rather than hanging out with his friends, he replied: “I like riding my bike, but I’d like to go into politics one day.”
Military veteran Jesse Martinez also clashed with Ms Peters, telling her: “A well-respected four-star general said he is incompetent to lead our troops. I take the word of a four-star general over a coward who denied the draft. I respect the office, I don’t respect the man.”
Once again, the Biden campaign team denied the general public access to an all-star line-up including Barack Obama and Stevie Wonder, a legendary figure in Detroit where a 35 metre high mural of him was completed last year.
The contrast between the Biden event and recent Trump rallies, where thousands of people mill outside events they cannot get into, could not have been more stark.
“Dump Trump! Dump Trump! Dump Trump!”, the small crowd chanted.
At an earlier Biden-Obama rally in Flint, Michigan, Mr Obama came out swinging against President Donald Trump, launching a blistering attack before Biden joined him on stage in Flint.
At his drive-in rally in Detroit, Mr Biden said Mr Trump had divided the nation.
“In three days, we can put an end to a presidency that has divided this nation. In three days, we can put an end to a presidency that has failed to protect this nation. In three days, we can put an end to a presidency that has fanned the flames of hate all across this nation.
“I don’t care how hard Donald Trump tries. There is nothing — NOTHING — that is going to stop the people of this nation from voting.
“It’s time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home. We’re done with the chaos. The tweets. The anger. The hate. The failure. The irresponsibility.”
Meanwhile a new poll suggests the race for the White House is tightening – with Joe Biden’s national lead dipping to just under 5 per cent, and a much closer 3 per cent margin in the battleground states.
The results of the IBD/TIPP tracking poll, released Saturday, give US President Trump fresh hope for another Electoral College win, even if he loses the popular vote.
“Biden has a narrow 3-point edge in swing states, those six states decided by less than 2 points in 2016,” the survey by Investor’s Business Daily found.
Biden has 49.5 percent support nationwide in the poll of likely voters, compared to 44.7 percent for the incumbent — a 4.8 percent lead, well outside its 3.2 percent margin of error.
Trump gained almost a full percentage point on Biden from the poll’s Friday measurement, which found the Democrat with a 5.6 percent lead.
The survey has found a consistent but see-sawing Biden lead in recent weeks — with Trump only 2 points behind on Oct. 20.
But with Biden racking up large vote totals in safely blue regions like the northeast and the West Coast, his national lead could be deceiving.
TRUMP KICKS OFF PENNSYLVANIA BLITZ
As he started a four-rally sprint through Pennsylvania, Donald Trump warned the state it held the future of America in its hands.
Describing his opponent Joe Biden’s only plan to combat the coronavirus as wanting to shut down the country again and “kill off the economy”, he said the Democrat contender was “obsessed” with the pandemic.
“That’s his only plan - to make you a prisoner in your home, a prisoner in your own country,” Mr Trump said in Newtown, Pennsylvania.
“Under the Biden lockdown, the recovery will be totally kill economy will crash country can’t afford.
“There’ll be no school. There’ll be no graduation. There’ll be no weddings, no Thanksgiving stuff, no Christmas, no Easters, no Fourth of Julys. There’ll be nothing. We’ll be nothing.
“We will never lock down again,” he said to cheers.
Pennsylvania is firming as a crucial victory for both camps, with Mr Trump spending five of his final 14 appearances there and Mr Biden dedicating his final two days on the hustings to the large state, which holds a potential 20 of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win.
Mr Trump narrowly took Pennsylvania from Hillary Clinton in his shock 2016 win by targeting its large rural population.
The state has benefited from the US energy boom of the past four years, with the Trump administration opening up its huge shale gas reserves to fracking.
He zeroed in again on Mr Biden’s previous statements that he would ban fossil fuels, which the Biden camp has since tried to walk back. Mr Biden says that rather than banning fracking he wants to end it on federal lands.
“A vote for Biden is a vote to ban fracking, and to send your state into a nightmare of poverty and depression,” Mr Trump said.
“That’s what’s going to happen. It’s your single biggest industry by far - probably a million jobs one way or the other.”
Thousand of people waited in line to see Mr Trump at his second rally at an airport in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Truck driver Patrick Kline from nearby Exeter Township said he was happy to wait in the cold for entry to his first Trump rally.
“I love Trump. He doesn’t put up with any bull crap,” said Mr Kline, who has long voted Republican because he is concerned Democrats would threaten his right to own guns.
“Also because I like my firearms and I don’t want anyone to take them away.”
Grandmother Carolyn said she brought her three grandchildren because they all wanted to hear what Mr Trump had to say.
Her nine year old grandson Nic, who was dressed in a star spangled banner suit, said he was dressed up because: “I love Trump”.
Frustrations and setbacks rocked both Mr Trump and Joe Biden’s camps as they entered the final three days of campaigning before next week’s election.
With opinion polls continuing to show Mr Biden ahead, Mr Trump has compiled a frantic schedule of campaign stops over the weekend, hoping to connect with as many voters as possible in the key battleground states.
But his plans were blocked in the Minnesota town of Rochester, south of Minneapolis, when Democrat leaders including Governor Tim Walz refused to allow his campaign team to hold a gathering of more than 250 people.
Mr Trump was forced to tell a small, socially distanced group of supporters on a freezing tarmac at Rochester Airport that the Democrats had blocked him because they feared he would attract a giant crowd to his rally.
“There are at least 25,000 people who wanted to be here tonight,” he told a delighted crowd. “We just saw a lot of them,” he said after his car, the Beast, whizzed along the tarmac and out to the front of the airport so he could address the supporters there.
“I wanted to pay my respects, they were there for a long time, they waited and waited and then the Governor did bad things.
“Your Democrat governor tried to shut down our rally and silence the people of Minnesota and take away your freedom and your rights. But I said no way, I will never abandon the people of Minnesota.”
TRUMP FAITHFUL BRAVE ELEMENTS
Rochester woman Marthamae Kottschade said people began lining up for the first come, first served event the night before in below-freezing conditions. She turned up at 4am for a scheduled 5pm rally.
“It was just wonderful,” she said as Air Force One lifted off from Rochester Airport after a shortened presentation from Mr Trump.
“He is a hero and he must win the election for the good of America. He will win Minnesota, he will turn in red.”
After drawing thousands at previous rallies in Bemidji and Duluth in defiance of the state’s 250-person limit on public gatherings, the Trump campaign said it had agreed to limit entry to the weekend rally at Rochester International Airport.
The Duluth event was held a couple of days before Trump tested positive for COVID-19.
And Joe Biden was having his own problems in Minnesota as he tried to address a small drive-in rally at the State Fairgrounds in Minneapolis.
Trump supporters chanted, jeered and beeped their horns outside the Biden rally at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.
“They are not very polite, but they’re like Trump,” Biden said of the Trump supporters with flags standing about 100 yards from his stage at the Minnesota state fairgrounds in St. Paul. They also blew airhorns and chanted “four more years” as Biden was speaking.
He also at one point referred to the Trump protesters who were blowing air horns as “ugly folks over there beeping the horns.”
“The American people don’t panic, Donald Trump panicked,” Mr Biden said at one point.
“Why should you pay more taxes than Donald Trump pays? Honk your horn if you want America to lead again.
“Honk your horn if you want America to be united again.”
Hillary Clinton narrowly won Minnesota by only 45,000 votes in 2016. Although Republicans haven’t won it since 1972, a play for Minnesota by the Trump campaign has forced the Democrats to divert resources from other battlegrounds.
Mr Biden is being be joined on the campaign trail for two events in Michigan by his old boss Barack Obama, while Mr Trump will have MAGA rallies in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Wisconsin over two days.
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Originally published as US election 2020: Teen clashes with Trump fan during rally blitz