Donald Trump Jr. opens father’s regional campaign office
Jim McNutt/Observer-Reporter Donald Trump Jr. addresses supporters and volunteers as the Trump-Pence campaign officially opens a headquarters in SouthPointe Wednesday.
A large crowd gathers around a tent as Donald Trump Jr. addresses supporters and volunteers as the Trump-Pence campaign officially opens a headquarters in Southpointe Wednesday.
A crowd gathers closely around Donald Trump Jr. after he addressed supporters and volunteers as the Trump-Pence campaign officially opens a headquarters in Southpointe Wednesday.
“I don’t see any deplorable people here.”
That’s what one supporter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Wednesday morning as she awaited the arrival of the GOP standard bearer’s namesake, Donald Trump Jr., to open the campaign’s regional office at Southpointe.
The supporter was referring to a now-notorious remark Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton made at a fundraiser last week, where she placed half of Trump’s supporters into what she dubbed a “basket of deplorables.” Trump fans made light of the comment over and over again at Wednesday’s event, holding up signs saying, “Deplorable Lives Matter” and “Veterans Are Not Deplorable.”
Upon his arrival at a tent outside the office on Town Center Boulevard, the 38-year-old Trump mostly stuck to a familiar litany of themes from his father’s campaign, describing it as a pragmatic enterprise that will “bring jobs back to America.”
To cheers from those in attendance, Trump asserted that Pennsylvania was within reach for his father’s campaign. Most observers have suggested that Donald Trump carrying Pennsylvania will be decisive if he is to reach the 270 electoral votes necessary to get the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. No Republican has carried the Keystone State since George H.W. Bush’s near-landslide in 1988 over Michael Dukakis, and most polls have given Clinton an edge in the commonwealth. However, the candidate and his team believe that they could move Pennsylvania from the blue to red column by increasing turnout in the more conservative western part of the state to offset the liberal tilt of Philadelphia and its suburbs.
To that end, Trump’s son played up his links to the state, saying that he went to school in Pottstown, was a Pennsylvania resident for nine years and liked to hunt and fish.
“I’m new at this, but I think we figured this out,” Trump said. “Maybe (Donald Trump) is the blue-collar billionaire, but he gets it. He doesn’t need the job. He loves his country. He’s a patriot.”
The younger Trump also said, “We’re actively coming up with real policy.”
Trump praised union workers, but slammed “the bosses” who, he said, support Clinton. Along the same lines, he had kind words for teachers, but added that “it’s about the administrators at the top.”
He only briefly touched on foreign policy, mocking those who, in his estimation, believe “we have to consider the feelings of countries that hate us.”
Natalie Tissot, a McMurray resident, said Trump’s visit got her fired up, adding that voters “don’t want the Hillary fraud and corruption and they don’t want to be talked down to. He’s for core Americans.”
Some supporters held up signs that said, “Trump Digs Coal,” and one man carried a poster with Trump as Uncle Sam, with the legend, “I Want You to Build My Wall.”
There was one note of dissent, however. Someone in a nearby office building taped 11 individual pieces of paper to the window facing out to the crowd. They spelled out “Clinton 2016.”