Campaigning in Michigan, Wisconsin, Trump calls Biden agenda ‘menacing’

In Janesville, Trump demanded that the state further reopen its economy and, despite rising coronavirus cases, said the country was “rounding the corner”

President Donald Trump, down in the polls with less than three weeks to go before Election Day, on Saturday campaigned in the contested Midwest, ripping into several liberal foils as the crowd called for their imprisonment.

“Ilhan Omar, she doesn’t love our country too much, I don’t think so,” he said in Muskegon, Michigan, referring to a freshman congresswoman who is one of the first Muslim women in Congress.

Later, he joined in a crowd chant of “lock her up,” referencing another favorite target, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. He criticized restrictions she has put in place during the pandemic, saying, “The schools have to be open, right?”

Trump’s long-standing criticism of Whitmer is particularly freighted now because, according to the FBI, an armed group this summer plotted to kidnap her. Whitmer has said that she remains worried about the presence of right-wing groups in Michigan, as well as Trump’s reluctance to condemn them.

“This is exactly the rhetoric that has put me, my family, and other government officials’ lives in danger,” Whitmer, responded on Twitter while the rally was in progress.

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That did nothing to change the rhetoric onstage. When the crowd again chanted “lock her up” at a mention of Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, Trump egged them on. “Are we having a good time?” he asked.

In Janesville, Wisconsin, his second stop of the night, Trump demanded that the state further reopen its economy and, despite rising coronavirus-related hospitalizations there, said the country was “rounding the corner.” His rally, like the one in Michigan, was outdoors, but people were packed closely together, and some were unmasked.

Trump emphasized law and order in Wisconsin, a state where his campaign aides believe the issue remains top of mind for suburban voters shaken by the violence that erupted in Kenosha over the summer after a police shooting left a Black man, Jacob Blake, paralyzed. “The most menacing aspect of the Biden-Harris agenda is their attack of law and order,” Trump said.

“The police are afraid if they touch somebody or speak to somebody rudely, they will be destroyed, their pension will be gone, their family will be gone,” he said.

Trump on Saturday had the campaign trail to himself, with just 17 days left before Election Day.

Biden’s top campaign officials had warned in a memo that the race was “far closer than some of the punditry we’re seeing,” noting that it was too soon to be complacent when Biden was still “neck and neck” with Trump in some battleground states. But Biden was absent from the campaign trail as Trump held his two rallies.

In Michigan, where he spoke for 90 minutes at a county airport, Trump ramped up what have become the dark closing arguments of his campaign as he seeks to reframe the election about issues other than his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed 219,000 Americans thus far.

Trump warned that, if he loses the election, America would become the playground for “radical anarchists” set on tearing down national monuments. And he tried to convince voters that Biden would be controlled by terrorist-loving socialists. “He’s a criminal,” Trump said of his Democratic opponent, without presenting evidence. “He’s committing crimes.” Later, he claimed that Biden “works for China.”

“One of the greatest dangers facing Michigan is Biden’s plan to flood your state with refugees from terrorist hot spots all around the world,” Trump added, making a false claim about Biden’s agenda.

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