Donald Trump kicked off his final day of campaign rallies predicting victory if his MAGA fans make it to the polls — but revealed his gravelly voice is a problem and again defended the speaking style he calls “the weave.”
“If we get our vote, there’s nothing they can do,” he told a crowd in North Carolina.
“I actually hate that expression – but it’s ours to lose,” Trump said.
Despite the time constraints, Trump spoke for 90 minutes on a variety of topics, then revealed some family advice at the end of his remarks.
“Ivanka called me a while ago, she sends her love to everyone. She is amazing,” he said of his daughter, who advised his White House but did not accompany him on the campaign trail.
“And I have a husband who is at home with the first lady. He’s very smart… He’s 18 years old. And he gives me good advice.’ Trump then did a quick impression of his son, a college freshman. ‘Daddy: take it easy now. Just take it easy, Dad, okay? You don’t have to go too far here. He gives me the good, he is very wise,” Trump said.
Last day to rally: Former President Donald Trump gathered supporters in North Carolina and indicated son Barron told him to ‘take it easy’
He exudes optimism, even as he occasionally admits the possibility of defeat.
‘Hopefully everything will be fine. We are leading. All we have to do is close it out,” Trump said, after polls showed one of the closest races in years.
But as he wrapped up his campaign, Trump acknowledged his voice fell short, went off script to attack Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Michelle Obama, and revealed his desire to “get out of here fast” even as he was raging for ninety minutes.
Trump also noted that sometimes things don’t go as expected for Republicans. “You looked at it like a racehorse and sometimes they got there and sometimes they didn’t,” Trump admitted. “My only purpose in being here today: to get out and vote. You know that,” he said.
Trump sounded hoarse on Sunday during a wide-ranging rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania, where he said he should not have left the White House and talked about how “someone would have to cut through the fake news” to get him.
By Monday, his voice was back, and he went on and off the teleprompter, threatening to tell Mexico’s new president that he would impose a 25 percent tariff. He foresaw a possible shakedown in a show of force. “If you don’t give us $3 billion, I’ll impose the biggest damn tariff…” Trump said, not holding himself back on his last word.
Trump hammered Nancy Pelsoi, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and other rivals
Trump said he “loves dogs” and spoke about the advice he received from son Barron
At one point he told the audience he “loves dogs,” in a campaign that featured more pet comments than most. Notably, Trump became the first president in years not to have a pet in the White House.
He made the comment after a high-pitched noise came from the crowd.
‘I love dogs. We love dogs,” Trump said earlier
Then he turned to talking about his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump. “She came into the office and she loves dogs and pets. And she made me do things for dogs that you wouldn’t believe,” Trump said.
‘Daddy, we have to make the cages bigger. We need to get air conditioning,” he said Lara told him.
‘I said, should we give them a steam bath? ‘
With every minute counting, Trump is trying to stay on schedule – and share time management strategies with his audience, while claiming rival Kamala Harris is sleeping and not working hard.
‘I wanted to get out of here quickly. I’m doing four of these things today. And the voice barely holds up,” he said after going into several long digressions.
He defended his speaking style. “The press will say, ‘Oh, he wandered.’ No, do you know what that is? That’s genius. That’s the tissue. … That was the ultimate fabric.”
But he looked at the clock. ‘I have to go a little faster now. “I’ve taken Marco’s place and I’ve taken Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ place… and I’m going to ask them now to come forward,” he said. He brought up Senator Rubio and his former press secretary.
He praised their brevity. “What they just did was better and appreciated, it puts us a little bit on track,” Trump said.
He took the time to put a plug in former First Lady Melania Trump’s book. ‘She loves you. She says hello,” Trump said. He then defended the digression, which he called a weave.
“And I said first lady. First lady. Look, this is a bit of a weave… First lady book, boom. But you always have to bring it back. When it comes to a point where it’s no longer coming together at the bottom, then it’s time to say, let’s not do this anymore. We wouldn’t do this again. But what happened is Van Jones cried,” he continued, bringing up a favorite story about the CNN commentator.
Trump returned to his refrains about Kamala Harris’ surrogates coming after him.
Among them is the popular former first lady Michelle Obama. ‘She shot me a few times. I said, ‘Woah, woah, woah.’
He called Barack Obama “the great dividing line” and then called him by his full name: “Barack Hussein Obama.”
“He came out for Hillary the same way, how did that work out?” Trump added.
He then called former Speaker Nancy Pelosi “a disgrace.” He also accused her husband of selling shares in Visa two months before the DOJ announced an investigation.
‘They deposed me because there was no evidence, I did nothing wrong. Fortunately, the Republicans stood up for me 100 percent,” he said. Trump was acquitted 57-43, short of the required two-thirds majority, with seven Republicans voting to convince.
Trump continues to cross battleground states, with his final rally for Grand Rapids tonight.