Trump cuts loose in Pennsylvania
President Trump stumped Saturday night for GOP congressional candidate Rick Saccone, who is running in a special election Tuesday. Trump praised Saccone as an "extraordinary person" who should "win easily," but most of the president's rambling campaign address focused on his own agenda, enemies, and entertainment value.
Trump spoke of his party's tax reform bill ("bigger than [Ronald] Reagan"), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) ("very low-IQ individual"), NBC's Chuck Todd ("sleeping son of a bitch"), and Oprah, whom he said he would "love to beat" in the 2020 election, though it would be "a painful experience for her." He praised himself for his forthcoming meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, and he praised Singapore for executing suspected drug dealers, adding that he would like to do the same.
Toward the end of his speech, Trump paused to note that his style is not very "presidential," arguing that his freewheeling approach is "much more effective." "If I came like a stiff, you guys wouldn't be here tonight," he said, launching into an impression of himself as a boring president who does boring things, like expressing respect for the military or saying "God bless you."
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Watch the full address below. Trump's thoughts on executing drug dealers begin 49 minutes in, and his "presidential" bit starts just after the one-hour mark. 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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