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'Pretend that I'm on the ballot', Trump tells Kentucky rally before midterms
At a Northern Kentucky arena on Saturday, the President boasted of a 'much more powerful' second term, promised $5,000 for every adult and campaigned for Ed Gallrein, the man who beat Thomas Massie.
Key points
- Trump told Kentucky voters to 'pretend that I'm on the ballot' in November's midterms.
- He repeated a promise of $5,000 for every adult if Republicans keep Congress.
- He brought Ed Gallrein, who beat Thomas Massie in the primary, on stage.
President Donald Trump told supporters in Northern Kentucky on Saturday to treat next month’s midterm elections as a vote on him, as Republicans fight to hold on to both houses of Congress.
“Pretend that I’m on the ballot,” he told the crowd at Truist Arena in Highland Heights, near Cincinnati. Boasting of his second term, he said: “I can do stuff that is unbelievable. I don’t think I could have done this in my first term. This is a much more powerful term.”
Trump warned that a Democratic win would bring a depression and repeated a promise that a Republican Congress would give every adult American $5,000. Such a payment would need Congress’s approval and has been estimated to cost more than $1 trillion. He also said the war with Iran would end soon and that petrol prices would keep falling, and promised that the Defence Department would help revive a drug manufacturing plant in Kentucky if Republicans won.
He brought Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL and farmer, on stage. Gallrein beat Representative Thomas Massie in the Republican primary for the state’s 4th district after Massie pushed for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and opposed the Iran war. Trump called Massie a “jerk” and a “loser”. The jibes drew a mixed response, with part of the arena applauding and part staying silent.
In a wandering speech, Trump also claimed credit for renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and said, without basis, that he had renamed Lake Ontario “Lake America”.
Rising prices, which critics blame on his tariffs and the Iran war, have weighed on his approval ratings. After the rally he flew back to his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida for a dinner with the MAGA Inc. political group.