Trump slams McCain and 'Rocket Man,' touts partial border wall at Alabama rally


President Trump spoke Friday night at a primary campaign rally in Alabama for Sen. Luther Strange (R), who is in a runoff to retain the seat to which he was appointed after it was vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump endorsed Strange while publicly worrying about damage to his own image should his candidate lose Tuesday's vote. "I'll be honest, might have made a mistake," Trump mused, adding that he will support Strange's opponent, Judge Roy Moore, should he win.
Trump used the occasion to slam Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for his "terrible, honestly terrible" role in defeating the latest GOP health-care proposal, and to mention his much-promised border wall, which in this latest telling will be see-through, will only cover part of the border, and will keep drugs out of America. "You don't need [the wall] all the way," Trump said, promising to build "as much wall as we need."
The president also reused his "Rocket Man" nickname for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom Trump said "should have been handled a long time ago" by former President Bill Clinton. "This shouldn't be handled now," Trump continued. "But I'm going to handle it because we have to handle it. Little Rocket Man. We're going to do it. Because we really have no choice."
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Watch Trump's speech in its entirety below. Bonnie Kristian
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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