In his first Ohio campaign rally of 2020, President Trump defended killing an Iranian general, mocked his political opponents, and talked up the state’s economy — all while supporters in a packed Huntington Center cheered “USA! USA!”
It was an event not too unlike other “Make America Great Again’’ rallies. Except for the location.
“We take good care of our auto workers in Toledo, home of the Jeep. How good is Jeep?” Mr. Trump said from a stage erected atop the covered ice at the arena, home to the Toledo Walleye that holds up to 10,000 people.
Mr. Trump spoke for 90 minutes in a boisterous rally that marked his first trip to the Glass City since the 2016 election, and his 15th appearance in Ohio since his inauguration.
The President often touts the economy, his major argument for re-election, during his rallies. In Toledo on Thursday, he declared that “Ohio just had the best year economically in the history of your state,” but it was unclear what data he was citing.
The Iran crisis, which momentarily overshadowed Mr. Trump’s looming impeachment trial, has also opened a new front in the 2020 presidential campaign for Mr. Trump, who in 2016 campaigned on a promise to end American involvement in “endless wars.”
Also joining Mr. Trump on stage in Toledo was Vice President Mike Pence, who spoke first about the simmering tensions in the Middle East.
Mr. Pence aid the President deserved credit for taking out a “dangerous terrorist” while managing to keep the engagement from escalating into an all-out war.
Leadership lauded
“And when American lives were threatened by the most dangerous terrorist in the world, President Donald Trump took action and Qassem Soleimani is gone,” Mr. Pence said. “And in the wake of that attack, Iran responded, but thanks to the professionalism of the military, we suffered no American casualties and Iran appears to be standing down. That’s what leadership looks like.”
Mr. Trump also sought to compare his response to the attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad to the 2012 attack on U.S. government facility in Benghazi.
A U.S. ambassador to Libya, a foreign service officer and two CIA contractors were killed in the Benghazi attack, which led to a two-year Republican-led investigation into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was not found to have committed wrongdoing.
No Americans were killed in the Baghdad assault. The protesters managed only to breach the edge of the sprawling embassy complex.
“This was the anti-Benghazi,” the President said. “We got there very quickly. This is the exact opposite.”
The President criticized Sen. Bernie Sanders for raising objections to how he carried out the strike on Soleimani.
“We got a call. We heard where he was. We knew the way he was getting there,” Mr. Trump told cheering supporters at the Huntington Center.
‘3 years of action’
Mr. Pence touted the President’s accomplishments.
“It’s been three years of action. It’s been three years of results. It’s been three years of promises made, promises kept — and we’re just getting started, Ohio,” Mr. Pence said.
While some observers believe Mr. Trump enters 2020 with a good chance of winning re-election in the state, the President can’t really afford to lose Ohio’s 18 electoral votes in his re-election bid.
“All roads to the White House run through Ohio,” the President’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, a campaign adviser, said Wednesday in Columbus.
Mr. Trump carried battleground Ohio by 8 percentage points over Democrat Hillary Clinton, and flipped nine “pivot” counties that twice voted for President Barack Obama. Republicans also swept statewide executive offices in the 2018 midterms.
In the lead-up to the 2020 election, Democrats are focusing on swing suburbs that trended the opposite direction of the state overall in 2016. They believe there’s an opportunity to bring educated women disillusioned with the President into the party — a campaign strategy they highlighted at the October Democratic presidential debate in Westerville, a blue-trending Columbus suburb.
In July, 2016, at the Huntington Center, Mr. Trump, in one of three Toledo rallies before the election, railed against trade agreements that sent jobs overseas and promised to build a wall at the southern border.
While 100 miles of the border wall was refurbished in 2019 — the use of Defense Department funds to build the wall is being decided in court — the U.S. House passed his renegotiated North American free trade pact, the USMCA, with Democratic support.
“These companies would leave and go to Mexico, go to Canada. They’re all coming back and many are coming right here to Ohio,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Pence was in Toledo to introduce Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence landed at Toledo Express Airport in their respective airplanes — Air Force One and Air Force Two — and were greeted by Secretary of State Frank LaRose; Mr. Trump’s Ohio campaign director, Bob Paduchik; John Robinson Block, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Blade; and Susan and Allan Block. Allan Block is chairman of Block Communications Inc.
Less than a month from the Democrats’ first nominating contest in Iowa, Mr. Trump criticized the party’s front-runners, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of Indiana.
While 12 Democrats are competing in Ohio’s March 17 primary, Mr. Trump has the ballot to himself here.
“It’s like watching death,” Mr. Trump said of the Democratic debates. “You gotta sit through those things for two, three hours. You gotta be real committed to the country to do that.”
Mr. Trump said that he expects the GOP will make big gains in Congress in 2020, and he predicted Democrats will flounder with politicians like Mr. Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“You know who the leader of your party is?” he asked the crowd. “All of you.”
The President concluded his speech at the Huntington Center to an eruption of applause.
“We believe in the dignity of work and the sanctity of life,” he said as he neared the end of his address. “We believe that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the true American way.”
Staff writer Kate Snyder and The Blade’s news services contributed to this report.
First Published January 10, 2020, 2:53 a.m.
