US election: Joe Biden savages Donald Trump supporters
Joe Biden has taken another swing at supporters of presidential rival Donald Trump, as the Republican’s campaign trail hopes take a hit.
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Hopes for another raucous gathering of the Presidents’ supporters were dashed Friday in Minnesota after Democratic local authorities forced Team Trump to scale back a rally set to attract thousands.
It came as his rival Joe Biden, who recently branded Trump supporters “chumps”, once against derided the President’s adoring fans, calling them “ugly folks … they are not very polite, but they’re like Trump”.
The Trump campaign had to back down from plans for yet another massive gathering in the town of Rochester, 90 minutes south of Minneapolis, and were forced to accommodate just 250 people on the tarmac of Rochester Airport.
Supporters started lining up outside the airport the night before the event in below-freezing conditions for the first-come, first-served event.
About 5000 waited outside after missing out on the cut.
President Trump decided to carry out the small forum and defied Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz by addressing the masses who waited outside the airport.
“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.”
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 at today’s rally at Rochester International Airport.
The Duluth event was held a couple of days before Mr Trump tested positive for COVID-19.
Last night’s gathering was held in freezing conditions after the sweltering heat in Florida at his rally with about 10,000 supporters Thursday.
But if the Trump campaign was upset, Joe Biden couldn’t contain his outright contempt for the President’s supporters when they effectively drowned out his speech at his latest drive-in rally in nearby Minnesota.
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,” Mr Biden said of 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.
AS CONTENDERS DUEL, BIDEN GAFFES, AGAIN
US President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden took their White House battle to the American Midwest on Friday (local time), chasing every last vote with four days to go in a region that propelled the former reality TV star to victory in 2016.
Mr Trump and Mr Biden are each barnstorming three heartland states, as a resurgent coronavirus highlights their differences in a race overshadowed by the pandemic, which has cost 228,000 lives.
“It will be a big day,” Mr Trump told reporters as he left the White House for Michigan, before heading on to Wisconsin and Minnesota where he will converge with the Democrat Biden — who made his first stop of the day in Iowa.
Mr Trump flipped Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin from the Democrats to clinch his shock victory four years ago. Now Mr Biden is aiming to snatch them back, and polls show him leading in all three, albeit narrowly in Iowa.
“I don’t take anything for granted,” Mr Biden — who is ramping up his ground game in the closing days of the race — said before departing his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
“We’re going to work for every single vote up ‘til the last minute.”
But Mr Biden, who has made a number of slips ups on the campaign trail, rallied against “trillionaires” in a 25-minute speech in Des Moines, Iowa, despite there being no such thing.
“I guarantee you, I give you my word as a Biden, no one making less than $400,000 a year will see a penny in their taxes raised. No one,” Mr Biden claimed, the New York Post reported.
“But I tell you what, it’s about time, the wealthiest people in America, the billionaires and trillionaires — um, the multibillionaires ...”
The Democrat leader then trailed off.
Mr Biden has sought to persuade the few remaining undecided voters that he would provide a steady hand on the wheel and heal America’s “soul,” calling Mr Trump irresponsible.
The 77-year-old former vice president has held drive-in, socially distanced rallies, while Mr Trump’s large outdoor gatherings — such as a raucous affair on Thursday in Tampa, Florida — have often been shoulder-to-shoulder, and largely mask-free.
MELANIA GREETS TRUMP WITH A KISS
On Thursday, First Lady Melania Trump said her husband had done more in four years than his opponent in four decades as she greeted him with a kiss at their first joint campaign appearance in front of a cheering 6000-strong crowd.
Declaring the president was working towards “destroying the virus”, she said he was rebuilding America’s economy as the Trump administration celebrated record shattering GDP growth.
“President Trump chooses to move this country forward. This country deserves a president with proven results, not empty words and promises,” she said to cheers.
Figures released on Thursday (local time) showed the economy grew at a pace of 33.1 per cent in the third quarter, driven by a boost in consumer spending.
Both candidates headed to Florida on Thursday (local time), a battleground state where they are deadlocked in polling and which Mr Trump needs to win under almost every pathway to retaining the White House.
Stumping in the Gulf Coast city of Tampa, the events were as starkly different as the two men themselves.
In the cool of the early evening, Mr Biden hosted 285 cars at his sedate “drive-in” rally where he valiantly ignored the activities across town earlier in the day involving thousands of sun-soaked people he has branded “Trump’s chumps”.
At Mr Trump’s raucous rally, few wore masks and the only social distancing came when heat-stressed people passed out and had to be separated from the jam-packed masses.
But at the Biden drive-in, the few people there had to stay in their cars and about 100 supporters of both candidates gathered outside the Florida State Fairgrounds to discuss their differences. And the heat didn’t hold up for Mr Biden when heavy rain forced him to cut short his speech.
Jim Moss, 44, attended the Trump rally – held in scorching heat with very little shade or shelter – before making his way over to the Fairgrounds.
“We had plenty of positivity over there, we were told of a great future over there, and over here it’s all darkness, it’s all gloom – look at the clouds! It was sunny over at the Trump rally,” he said.
“That’s all you need to know, my man. I think Biden should hang it up and go home.”
Will Coyner, an accountant, held a sign saying “Bye Don!” outside the Biden show.
“My biggest issue is that Trump doesn’t have the character or the leadership to deliver the country from the current COVID crisis,” said Mr Coyner, who missed out by just seven cars ahead of him to make the cut-off for the Biden event.
“I’m bothered by his divisiveness, he is extremely divisive. He is constantly lying.”
Amanda, a medical worker, said the past four years “have not been good for us”.
“I think it’s good that Joe is holding smaller events,” she said.
“I think it is a great idea. I understand they are trying to limit the number of people.”
Mr Biden said: “This election is the most important one you’ve ever voted in”.
“The heart and soul of this country’s at stake right here in Florida,” he told supporters at the first of two drive-in rallies.
A record 73 million Americans have already voted, and Mr Biden urged his supporters to keep casting early ballots to battle what he labelled Republican efforts to suppress their votes.
“He knows if you vote, he can’t win,” Mr Biden said.
“Why do you think they’re spending so much time keeping black folks and brown folks and poor folks from voting?”
He also warned Cuban-Americans, a key voting bloc who are breaking for Mr Trump’s anti-socialist rhetoric, that they couldn’t trust the president because his administration’s closeness to autocratic world leaders made them “the worst possible standard bearers for democracy”.
New NBC Marist polling released on Friday showed Mr Trump was supported by Florida’s Cuban American voters at 71 per cent to 23 per cent for Mr Biden.
“President Trump can’t advance democracy and human rights for the Cuban people, for the Venezuelan people, when he has embraced so many autocrats around the world,” Mr Biden said.
Earlier, a number of attendees at Mr Trump’s Tampa Bay rally passed out from heat exhaustion as thousands of supporters packed into a carpark with virtually no shade or shelter from the sun.
Paramedics struggled to find a way through the crowd to help the stricken as the over 30C heat pounded the jam-packed audience, most of whom were not wearing masks.
Many people had arrived at the outdoor location up to 3.5 hours before the Trumps arrived. Mr Trump then spoke for nearly two hours.
Giant water jets were unleashed twice on sections of the crowd to try to battle the heat and crates of bottled water were passed around.
But after initial enthusiasm for his appearance brought the usual chants of “USA! USA! USA!” and “We love you!”, the big and adoring crowd thinned quickly as more and more people succumbed to the heat.
Among them was Keith, a policeman from New York, who had to be assisted out of the crowd.
“That heat was brutal,” he said later as he recovered on a chair away from the gathered masses, nursing three bottles of water.
“People were going down around me and I went to help them but then I started to feel sick too.
“But I’m okay. It was worth it. I thought he was great.”
Mariely Crowne, who owns an Irish pub with her husband, was one of the colourful characters at the MAGA rally, dancing and waving a huge flag supporting Mr Trump.
“I am here today to support Donald Trump. I’m gonna tell you the truth, I was not a Trump supporter back in March,” she said.
“After COVID happened I watched one of his news conferences and was appalled by what the media and reporters were asking him, how rude they were to him. After that, I started to research what he’s done and the amount of things he said he was going to do and which he has done for the American public, the media was trying to hide it.”
Indeed, Mr Trump and his supporters were openly aggressive towards sections of the media, especially the liberal CNN network, with people chanting abusive slogans at the media on Thursday (local time).
But the President had some fun with the crowd too, when he said his press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had done well in snaring professional baseballer Sean Patrick Gilmartin as her husband.
“She got herself a ballplayer, you have to be fit and in great shape to be a professional baseballer – not like these guys out here in front of me,” he joked.
Supporter Maryanne Shintner took her granddaughter out of school to attend the rally.
Asked what she thought of Mr Trump’s performance in handling the COVID crisis, she replied: “I think he’s done a good job.
“What else could he have done? I think it was made up to try to bring him down. I don’t believe the numbers when they say 225,000 Americans have died. I don’t believe it. It’s made up.”
She had COVID herself and recovered in three days “just by taking lots of vitamin C”.
Another supporter, volunteer Jill, said she and her family had be infected with the virus. Asked how often they were tested to get a positive diagnosis, she replied: “We didn’t need to get tested. We knew because we had the symptoms, like loss of taste.”
The candidates will shadow each other again on Friday (local time), with duelling appearances in the Iron Range states of Minnesota and Wisconscin among their planned movements.
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