John Jefferson
Former President Trump echoed Ronald Reagan on Saturday during a spirited battleground outdoor rally at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, asking, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
Trump blasted the Biden-Harris administration right off the bat, calling the current White House a “nightmare of inflation, invasion, and humiliation.”
The Republican presidential nominee also commented on his attendance at the Catholic Charities’ Al Smith Dinner on Friday night, where Vice President Kamala Harris was noticeably absent.
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Trump recalled, “she’s the only one in years, decades that didn’t show up. She didn’t show up.”
“And [Harris] ended up doing a tape that was pathetic,” said Trump. “And it was an insult to Catholics, frankly, because she was actually sort of knocking them or knocking religion that she had the other event the other day where she said, you’re in the wrong location when they started talking about a certain subject right here in the which basically was a knock on Christianity and a knock on religion, because she doesn’t know what the hell she’s saying.”
Trump was joined by a slate of speakers during Saturday night’s rally, including former NFL star wide receiver Antonio Brown.
“I want to say I know the media is going to call me crazy, me and Trump crazy for having me speak here,” Brown said. “But I want to make this clear. We are not. They are.”
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The crowd was both large and optimistic, with many children present at the rally dressed up as the former president and local steelworkers wearing hard hats.
Trump opened his nearly two-hour stump with a tribute to his late friend and PGA golf legend Arnold Palmer.
“But there was nobody that had his magic. He was a thriller. He was unbelievable. He, he knew how to win and he knew how to,, just do whatever it was that electrified a crowd,” Trump said. “If I had him here right now with me, this crowd would be going absolutely crazy. They’d say, Trump, get off this stage. We want Arnold Palmer to speak.”
Trump said he was good friends with and named one of the villas on his Doral, Florida, property after Palmer, who was a native of Pennsylvania, and died in 2016.
Trump focused much of his energy and attention on the Keystone State, especially on manufacturing jobs.
“For most of American history, Pennsylvania was the commercial and industrial powerhouse of the United States. But year after year, globalist radical left politicians and incompetents like Kamala Harris have waged a war on your Commonwealth,” Trump said.
“They’ve annihilated your steel mills, decimated your coal jobs, assaulted your oil and gas jobs, and sold off your manufacturing jobs to China and foreign nations all over the world. Under the Trump administration, we are going to take back what is ours,” he said.
Pennsylvania rank-and-file steelworkers with the Mon Valley Works union were welcomed onstage by Trump, who offered him a commemorative hard hat.
“The president saved the steel industry with tariffs, you saved it with tariffs,” said a steelworker. “And you’re my hero, and you’re the greatest president ever. We love you. So steelworkers for Trump and the rank-and-file Mon Valley Works wanted to endorse you.”
Trump plans on introducing a “Built in America” policy should he win in November, which would bring more manufacturing jobs back to Pennsylvania and the country at-large.
“So if we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole damn thing, right? And starting on day one of my new administration, I will end Kamala Harris’s war on Pennsylvania energy. Because, you know, she’s going to ban you know, she’s going to ban fracking, right? 100%,” Trump said.
“You know, she was against fracking, against all this stuff. And then all of a sudden, about a year and a half ago, when she was getting killed in the polls, she said, I like fracking very much,” he added.
According to a late September Fox News Poll, 60% of Pennsylvanians who are registered voters support fracking.
“Pennsylvania, if you want to end this disaster, you must get out and vote,” Trump said. “You have to go and vote. Get everybody you can.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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