In 82 minutes, he also spoke about the double assassination attempt, the Philadelphia debate, his beef with Oprah Winfrey and exploding hydrogen cars. ‘Under my leadership, we are going to take other countries’ jobs,’ Trump said. ‘Your only worry will be which job to take,’ he promised his supporters to loud cheers.
Trump said he would entice companies to produce products in the U.S. by threatening them with tariffs if they refused. ‘I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy cost, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet,’ he said.
‘But only if you make your product here in America.’ Trump talked about how he wanted German car companies to become American companies – but that talk eventually segued to his detest of electric cars – though he carved out a compliment for Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who endorsed him.
‘Elon Musk is great. He makes an excellent car. And he endorsed me at a level you wouldn’t believe,’ Trump said. From there, the ex-president warned about the cars of the future – hydrogen-powered vehicles.
‘The new thing – and I’m sure Elon will get it if it’s any good – but it’s got one little problem: it explodes,’ Trump said. ‘Hydrogen. ‘They say the new thing is hydrogen cars. But they’re having a problem. If it explodes you end up about seven blocks away and you’re dead.’
Trump talked about how he wouldn’t allow the Japanese company Nippon to buy the Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, which is currently under review by a U.S. national security panel. And then from there, he spoke a bit about the state of the 2024 race.
Trump boasted that he was outworking Harris – and that he won the Philadelphia debate against Harris earlier this month. He spent a lengthy amount of time recalling the two attempts on his life. Trump credited God for being responsible for saving him in Butler, Pennsylvania and said of West Palm Beach, ‘I’m telling you God was watching there too.’
The ex-president also heralded the immigration chart he was looking at in Butler when shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks took his shot. ”I sleep with that chart every night. I kiss it. I love it,’ he said. The audience cheered as the chart was displayed.
Trump appeared to fill the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center – a smaller venue than where he usually holds rallies – in downtown Savannah. Savannah is one of Georgia’s blue dots – with the broader Chatham County going for President Joe Biden over Trump 59 percent to 40 percent four years ago. Harris paid a trip to the city in late August.
Ahead of Trump’s appearance, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was among those tasked to warm up the crowd. Greene sported a red dress and cowboy boots and got much louder cheers than other Georgia Republicans, including former Sen.
David Perdue, whose 2021 election loss helped tilt the Senate to the Democrats. The congresswoman told the audience that ‘November 5 is a job interview.’ ‘Are we going to hire a woman who has received a government paycheck her entire life – abusing government power?’ Greene asked. ‘Or are we going to hire a successful businessman?’ she said to cheers.
‘The American people are not stupid but the media thinks you are,’ she continued. ‘They want to convince you that Donald Trump is all these nasty things that they have been calling him. Well, all of those nasty names and all of that talk nearly got him assassinated – twice.
‘ Sharp-shooters were seen walking into the auditorium Tuesday ahead of Trump’s visit, as security has been heightened around the ex-president. Harris plans to deliver her own economic-focused addressed on Wednesday from Pittsburgh.
Ahead of Trump’s remarks, the Harris-Walz campaign tapped Mark Cuban to rebuff the GOP nominee’s economic plans.
‘In a nutshell, the vice president, her team, thinks through her policies,’ Cuban said Tuesday morning. ‘She doesn’t just off the top of her head say what she thinks the crowd wants to hear like the Republican nominee.’ Cuban noted that the Harris campaign has a ‘whole policy team’ and when he asks them a question ‘I get back a serious, well-studied response.’
‘That’s the antithesis of what Donald Trump is doing,’ Cuban said. ‘He says things off the top of his head that tend to often be ridiculous, if not insane.’ Cuban took issue with Trump’s recent threat to tariff John Deere by 200 percent if the company moved to Mexico.
The Shark Tank star explained that the net result of such a move would be that Trump would make Chinese manufacturers more competitive against John Deere. ‘You literally face the destruction of one of the most historied companies in the United States of America,’ Cuban said, calling the Trump-proposed policy ‘ridiculously bad and destructive.’ Cuban also mocked Trump’s push to have credit card interest rates capped at 10 percent.
‘Next in the what-the-hell-is-he-thinking list is the 10 percent price cap on credit card interest rates. I mean literally, Bernie Sanders suggested a cap of only 15 percent. right?’
Cuban said. ‘So now you have Donald Trump getting involved in price caps and price controls to a greater extent than self-described socialist Bernie Sanders.’ ‘And I think that just says so much about how far Donald has gone to his socialist and communistic tendencies, right?’ Cuban poked.
The billionaire investor said he realized it ‘sounds funny and a little bit out of whack.’ ‘These things he takes off the top of his head, he just makes up in real time and everyone around him tries to justify it,’ the Harris surrogate said. ‘And that’s the even crazier part.’
