President Donald Trump returned to western Pennsylvania for what will presumably be his last campaign visit this election cycle, stumping in Latrobe for Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano and Senate hopeful Mehmet Oz. But Trump often seemed more interested in talking about elections past and future than in the one taking place Tuesday.
“There's only one choice to end this madness, and it is indeed madness,” he told the crowd gathered at the Arnold Palmer airport, with his own aircraft as a backdrop behind him. “If you support the decline and fall of America, then you must vote for the radical left Democrats. If you want to stop the destruction of our country and save the American dream, then this Tuesday, you must vote Republican.”
Trump’s Pennsylvania speeches have a familiar pattern. They run well over an hour long, thanks to a number of lengthy digressions and asides, and it takes half of that time for him to do much more than mention the candidates he has nominally come to support.
His speech in Latrobe followed the pattern, mixing reminiscences about Latrobe golf legend Arnold Palmer and his father — “He could carry more sod than any other man,” Trump recalled — as well as Trump’s fond remembrances of his term as president.
But there were much darker passages as well. As Trump’s speeches have done in recent months, the speech ended with a violin section playing over the loudspeakers as Trump described America as a nightmare world of Mad Max-type violence — “large packs of sadistic criminals and thieves are … killing workers and killing the customers” — mixed with gripes about travel headaches: “You sit and wait for hours, and then they are notified that the plane won't leave.”
Trump did not, however, mention abortion more than once in the entire speech. And he only glancingly mentioned issues involving transgender children — concerns at the heart of Mastriano’s own bid.
Instead, Trump revisited years-old grievances against the media and his two previous impeachments. And he trafficked in bogus claims about election fraud in 2020, while potentially laying groundwork to challenge the results this fall.
“Remember at like 9:30 in the evening … I was up by almost a million votes, and then all of a sudden, like magic, it disappeared,” he said of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania. “And I’m so worried about Oz and Doug Mastriano, we can’t let that happen.”
In fact, there was nothing mysterious about the vote counting in 2020. As was widely anticipated, mail-in ballots, which were more heavily used by Democrats, took days longer to count than votes cast on Election Day itself. A similar dynamic is likely to play out this year.
But Trump depicted the contests in stark terms, telling his supporters that the election was a chance to “reject left-wing tyranny.” And in addition to offering up disproven conspiracy theories about the last election and teasing his run for the next one. Trump is reportedly planning to announce his bid on Nov. 14 — just days after an election that Republicans have been urging him not to overshadow.
At one point, Trump had the audience view polling data projected on a screen which showed him performing well against other potential GOP contenders in 2024, including his former Vice President, Mike Pence, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – who Trump referred to as “Ron DeSantimoious.”
“I promise you, in the very next very, very, very short period of time, you’re going to be so happy,” Trump said in one of a handful of statements hinting at a run.
And then, moments later — and one full hour into a speech that barely mentioned the candidates actually on the ballot – he said, “I want to have the focus tonight be on Dr. Oz and Doug Mastriano.”
Of the Senate race, Trump said that in a closely divided Senate, Oz’s election “could be the vote that's going to make the difference between a country and not a country. Because it could be 51 [Republican Senators]. It could be 50, could be 49. If it's 49 for the Republicans, this country, I don't know if it's going to live for another two years.” And he called Oz’s Democratic opponent, John Fetterman, “the single most dangerous Democrat seeking to join Congress,” because of criminal-justice reform efforts that include paroling people convicted of serious crimes.
As for the gubernatorial race, Trump warned that “a vote for Josh Shapiro is a vote to destroy Pennsylvania's future,” citing Shapiro’s inability to put a halt to a spike in crime rates, as well as his work to defend state policies on COVID-19 restrictions. (Shapiro has said he did not personally support those policies but was obliged to defend them as the state’s top lawyer.)
“This guy, he’s got a good line of crap, that’s about it,” said Trump.
As is also typical, Trump invited both men to the podium. Mastriano offered a pared-down version of his stump speech, which promised an end to “graphic porn in the schools,” as well as to vaccine and mask mandates. He finished by appropriating the words “let’s roll” from Todd Beamer, one of the passengers who sought to seize control of Flight 93 from terrorists on 9/11.
Oz spoke for roughly 51 seconds but needed only 9 of them to make a gaffe when he urged the audience to “contact 10 people. Do it at church, do it before the Steelers game” and ask how they feel about the country’s direction.
The Steelers, as fans know, have a bye this week and will not be playing.
The two GOP candidates demonstrated varying levels of enthusiasm for the event: As of 10 p.m. Saturday night, Oz’s campaign – which has sought to portray the candidate as a moderate figure and which largely deleted Trump from social media and stump speeches after the primary – hadn’t even mentioned the rally on social media. Mastriano, meanwhile, had tweeted about it a dozen times.
Democrats were not willing to let Oz’s appearance go unmentioned, however: “[H]e took the stage with Doug Mastriano and Donald Trump, embracing the most extreme elements of his party,” said the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. “This is who Mehmet Oz will be in the Senate.”
But few doubts were in evidence among the faithful who began arriving early for the event, rolling up into a parking lot as “Women for Trump,” “Let’s Go Brandon,” and “Don’t Tread on Me” flags flapped in the breeze.
Many said they would vote for the Republican ticket Tuesday, though Trump was clearly the main draw.
Anthony and Debbie Daversa, of Irwin, said they typically vote for Republicans and added they were concerned about economic issues, such as the price of home heating oil.
“What I paid $1.39 for, now I spent $4.74 a gallon to heat our house,” Anthony Daversa said.
Several Trump supporters — who generally were wary of identifying themselves by name — expressed doubts about the fairness of the election or repeated debunked claims about the 2020 election, though they said they still planned to vote.
