by Henry Redman for the Wisconsin Examiner
At a city corridor occasion in La Crosse Thursday night, former President Donald Trump gave lengthy, typically rambling responses to questions from voters and former Democratic U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
The occasion began greater than an hour late as a result of Trump’s rally earlier within the afternoon in Michigan ran lengthy, and greater than as soon as throughout his responses, Trump mused that he didn’t understand it was a city corridor till proper earlier than. Trump spoke for about half-hour, taking about six questions.
Gabbard, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 earlier than dropping out and endorsing President Joe Biden, opened the occasion by saying it was an thrilling week as a result of “two former Democratic candidates for president have endorsed Donald Trump to be president of the United States,” referring to herself and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ended his impartial marketing campaign for president final week.
Gabbard by no means polled at greater than 2% in any state in her marketing campaign and Kennedy switched his social gathering affiliation earlier than main voting began earlier this 12 months.
In her first query, Gabbard instructed Trump about her personal private historical past as she and her husband tried unsuccessfully to have a toddler by means of in vitro fertilization. Forward of the occasion, Trump had introduced a proposed coverage for his administration wherein the federal government would cowl, or power insurance coverage to cowl, the prices of IVF.
After that coverage announcement, Democrats shortly identified that Republicans throughout the nation have acted to dam entry to IVF. Challenges to IVF started after the U.S. Supreme Court docket, together with anti-abortion justices appointed by Trump, overturned Roe v. Wade. Additionally they identified that Trump’s working mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, voted towards a invoice that might have protected IVF entry.
In response to Gabbard’s query about IVF, Trump talked for almost 10 minutes, concerning Social Safety, Michigan’s automobile business, the so-called “fake news” media, the political opinions of his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris’ father, and a shipbuilding contract in Marinette.
“I didn’t know about your situation, and it’s tough stuff, right?” Trump mentioned. “Life is pretty tough. It can be beautiful, but it can be difficult. We are doing something with IVF, because IVF, as you know, for friends, people you know, it’s really worked out very well. For a lot of people, it gave them a child when they would not have had a child. And I told my people I wanted to look at this a couple of weeks ago.”
Trump then segued instantly into a brand new matter earlier than returning to the query about IVF: “And as you understand, we have now no taxes on a factor referred to as suggestions. You realize that? And I mentioned, Inform me, we did three issues. We did that, and we did no tax for seniors on Social Safety advantages. We need to have that. And I’ve been seeing numerous IVF, and I saved listening to that I’m towards it, and I’m truly very a lot for it. The truth is, in Alabama, the place the decide dominated towards it, and I countered the decide and got here out with a really robust assertion for it. And the Alabama [Legislature] they have been wonderful. The Legislature authorised nearly my assertion. I imply, full IVF, and it’s actually gone—it’s terrific.
“And I said, so, with the tips and with the Social Security, no taxes on Social Security, I said, maybe for IVF, and I’ve been looking at it, and what we’re going to do is for people that are using IVF, which is fertilization, we are, government is going to pay for it, or we’re going to get or mandate your insurance company to pay for it, which is going to be great. We’re going to do that. Well, it’s big. And you know what? We want to produce babies in this country, right? We want to produce babies. So I think it’s going to be something we told we sort of announced it a little bit.”
With out taking a break, Trump then moved on to speak concerning the rally he had simply attended.
“We have been in an excellent place, Michigan. All of us love Michigan, proper? We’re going to carry again the automobile business, and we’re going to get numerous it again to Michigan. They’ve been taking our vehicles away. They’ve been taking our manufacturing away over years, over many years. And when you take a look at it right this moment, it’s a shell of what it was years in the past, however we’re going to carry it again. Mexico is correct now constructing large automobile factories, truly being financed and constructed by China. They suppose all their vehicles again into our nation—it’s not going to occur. That’s not going to occur. Oh, hearken to that. That’s not going to occur.
“But so much, so many things have gone wrong in the car industry. The union leadership has been horrible. I think I’m going to win by 85% the union but because we’re bringing back and we’re gonna have electric cars, but we’re gonna have gasoline-powered cars, and we’re gonna have hybrids, we’re gonna have every kind of car. We’re not gonna go with just that. But I just felt that it would be a good place to announce it. And we did sort of the announcement there a little bit, and now we do the big announcement tonight in front of all of these television stations, all of the fake news, they’re all over the place. They’re all over the place. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Then Trump moved on to his assertion that he didn’t know concerning the city corridor format in Wisconsin.
“We don’t even know, I was saying because we’re doing this, and I finished, and I figured I was going to come here and we’re going to make a speech. I had a speech all set for you. I was ready. They said, ‘Sir, you’re actually doing a town hall.’ I said, ‘Oh, nobody told me that.’ I said, ‘Who’s doing it?’ They said, Tulsi. I said, ‘Well, that’s at least good news. She’s been, I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time after,’ so I’m in the plane and looking over some material, and we’re going to give you a hell of a speech tonight. We’re set to give you one hell of a speech. They said, ‘No sir, it’s a town hall.’ I said, ‘Why doesn’t somebody tell me this stuff?’ And I don’t even have any idea who we’re doing it for. I don’t know is it for a network or what? I see a lot of television all over the place, so maybe it’s on all of them.”
Trump then segued right into a critique of the his opponent’s CNN interview, which was airing on the similar time he was talking, after it was taped earlier within the day.
“But I did get to see the strangest thing today. I looked at the news conference of Kamala. I call her comrade, comrade, comrade Kamala. She’s a—you know that she’s a Marxist. Her father was a Marxist before her, so she was brought up in the family tradition, and she really is and this country is not ready for a Marxist. We don’t want a Marxist as a president.”
Harris’ mother and father divorced when she was 8 years outdated, and he or she was raised primarily by her mom.
“And she destroyed San Francisco,” Trump continued. “She destroyed California, and we’re not going to let her destroy our country. I’ll tell you it’s not going to happen. So, but just to finish, so, for some reason, she doesn’t want to talk to anybody, so she’s either not the smartest light in the ceiling—trying to be nice here. I want to be. They say, ‘Be nice.’ To be nice, you know, it’s hard to be nice when somebody is destroying your country and wants to destroy your country. It’s hard to be like, ‘Guys, but, but …’ she is. She was a terrible vice president. She was a terrible border czar, worst in history, probably not just in this country, but the border.”
Trump then moved on to his speaking factors on the border. “You know, millions and millions of people, I say 20 million-plus have poured through the border during their term. I had the safest border in the history of our country. They have the most unsafe border in the history of the world.”
Border crossings dropped markedly in July, to ranges decrease than throughout some intervals within the Trump administration.
Trump additionally repeated false claims about different international locations emptying their jails and psychological establishments to ship migrants to the U.S. “I don’t know if you saw the news today, Tulsi, they had a group of a lot of them, Venezuelan people with lots of machine guns taking over a building someplace. I’m looking, I’m saying, Where is that? They went in and they took over a building. This is just the beginning. They’re taking their criminals from all over the world, not just South America, not just Venezuela, which you’ve been reading about, all over the world. They’re taking their criminals and they’re dumping them into the United States, Kamala. That’s Kamala is allowing it to happen. And they actually want to actually, they want to give them papers, they want to make them citizens, and they want to give them your Social Security. They want to give them your Medicare, and your Social Security will collapse under her.”
Trump then segued to Social Safety: “I’m the one which’s going to guard the Social Safety, however they’re coming. I’ll inform you, as I did for 4 years, and there was no age enhance, there was not something they’re going to guard. You realize, they destroy you with inflation, after which they need to destroy your Social Safety … not going to occur.
“But this is going to be the most important election in the history of our country. So I just want to say that it’s an honor to be with you tonight. It’s a forum that’s very different, because I have no idea who the hell is broadcasting it, but all we’ll do is we’ll talk because we’re friends. I love this state. I gave them Marinette. We gave them a very big, you know, Tulsi, we have a ship contract. And as you know, we gave Marinette guards, but we gave them a tremendous contract. They wanted her all over the country. I said, we’re going to get it for Wisconsin, and it’s a big one, and they’re doing a great job, I understand. So we got that, and we’re going to have a good time tonight. So let’s go.”
After Trump’s prolonged introductory remarks, a girl from Cameron mentioned her son had simply began commerce college and that she was nonetheless an undecided voter, however fearful concerning the impact on the nation of unlawful immigration.
Trump opened his response by speaking about how immigrants take “Black jobs.”
“The people that I’m talking about, they’re pouring in at levels never seen before,” he mentioned. “They’re coming in by millions and millions, and a lot of them are taking the jobs for the Black population, the Hispanic population, and unions are going to be very badly affected.”
A pupil at UW-La Crosse requested about Trump’s plans to carry down inflation and assist younger individuals purchase houses. Trump’s response touched on election conspiracies and mentioned he was going to make America the “energy capital of the world.”
“I’m supposed to be nice when I talk about the election, because everybody’s afraid to talk about it. ‘Oh please sir, don’t talk about the election, please,’” he mentioned. “You realize, when you can’t, when you can’t discuss a foul election, you actually don’t have a democracy, if you consider it, proper? However what they did, Tulsi, is that they took, they took the oil manufacturing. The oil began going loopy. That began the inflation. Then they went again. They mentioned, ‘go back to where Trump was.’ The issue is that we might have been thrice that degree proper now. We’d have been so dominant over Russia and Saudi Arabia. Look, Saudi Arabia, Russia, lot of oil. We’d have had extra.
“You know, we had something in Alaska, ANWR, that we, that I created. I mean, Ronald Reagan wanted it. You remember, Ronald Reagan wanted it. They all wanted it. And I got it approved. Nobody was able to get it approved. I got it approved. And they, the first week in office, they turned it back. They said, ‘No, it’s the biggest site possibly in the world. Could be bigger than Saudi Arabia.’ Well, we’re going to start that up. We’re going to become the energy capital of the world. We’re going to pay down our debt, and we’re going to reduce your taxes still further, and your groceries are going to come tumbling down, and your interest rates are going to be tumbling down. And then you’re going to go out, you got to buy a beautiful house. OK, you got to buy a beautiful house. That’s called the American dream.”
When requested about crime, Trump used the subject as an opportunity to tee off on Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota.
“He is weird,” Trump mentioned, referencing a standard assault Walz has made towards him. “I’m not. He’s a weird guy. He’s a weird dude. You know, see, they always have sound bites. And one of the things is that J.D. and I are ‘weird.’ That guy is so straight, J.D. is, so he’s doing a great job, smart, top student, great guy, and he’s not weird. And I’m not weird. I mean, we’re a lot of things, we’re not weird, I will tell you. But that guy is weird. Don’t you think? You know he called, he signed for and this is—who would think that this is even happening in our country?—with men playing in women’s sports and all of this. But he has it. He has it at a level that nobody can believe a bill that every boy’s bathroom will have tampons. Hence his name, ‘Tampon Tim.’”
Trump then began falsely claiming that in Minnesota and different states run by Democrats, infants might be “executed” after they’re born.
“You sit the mother down and the father down, you sit them down, and you talk, and the baby is born, and you make a decision what to do,” he mentioned. “He meant, do you execute the baby after birth? And according to what they have passed a legislation in Minnesota, they’re allowed to execute the baby after birth. And this guy is a participant, and that’s why she picked him, because she is, in fact, a Marxist-slash-communist. Remember, I’d say all the time, our country will never be socialists, right? We will not have a socialist. Well, I was right. We skipped socialism. We went to communism. This woman has to be stopped.”
When requested by Gabbard about overseas coverage points, Trump praised Viktor Orban, the far-right Hungarian prime minister.
“Viktor Orban, a very strong leader from Hungary, prime minister of Hungary. They asked him recently about what’s the problem in the world,” Trump mentioned. “A few years ago, during my time, we had, no, we didn’t have Israel being attacked. We didn’t have Russia attack in Ukraine. And they asked him, ‘Why is it so bad now the Middle East is on fire? So many places are on fire, and there are plenty places that could very well and very quickly catch on. What’s the problem?’ He said, ‘You have to bring Trump back as president of the United States. You will have no problem. He single handedly kept things.’ And it’s true, and I could do it with telephone calls by being smart, but literally, he said you have to bring Trump back.”
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